One of the boons of Ramzan has been the balmy weather. Not exactly cool, because it’s not really been cool, but at least not as hot as it usually is at this time of the year. I mean, we’re into May, as the wind hasn’t been as searing as it is. Good news, surely, not to mention that it means that people find the energy to attend the taraweeh prayers in greater numbers than usual.
Apart from that working to prevent social distancing from working, what about the heat killing off the coronavirus? It seems that isn’t happening. It seems they have hopes in Sindh, where they’ve asked people to keep their ACs off during a heatwave that’s coming. But the heat isn’t coming to rescue, as Imran hoped it would.
Of course, that just goes to show how the evil Sindh government is trying to do down the PTI. As everyone knows, jiyalas are busy spreading the coronavirus just to make the PTI look bad.
It seems that Imran’s solution is to sack Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan. A rather peremptory sacking, not even a statement saying that he was releasing her so she could treat COVID-19 patients in her native Sialkot. She was replaced by Lt Gen (retd) Asim Bajwa, who brought his experience as DG ISPR to the job.
However, while Dr Awan had no boss, as SAPM being in charge of the Information Ministry, General Bajwa has as his boss the new Information Minister, Senator Shibli Faraz. He is the son of a very great poet, who led a sort of fightback against the Progressive Writers, even though he was left-leaning himself, and must be counted as a progressive. You see, the progressive writers inclined to the boy-meets-tractor school, but Shibli’s father, the great Ahmad Faraz, went for a more old-fashioned sort of boy-meets-girl romance. For decades, he was the turn-to poet for young people, and he still should be, for he wrote some of the most exquisite lines ever penned.
I hope Shibli gives readings to the Cabinet. I’m sure the Senate must be a very lyric sort of place, and thanks to the PTI, what with Faraz’s son and Iqbal’s grandson in its delegation. That’s a little touching, because the party chief is as dedicated a Philistine as the rest of them.
One can recall Benazir Butto quoting Frost back in her first speech as PM, but Mian Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Mariam, and Asif Zardari, and his son Bilawal, are not known as fans of poetry. Well, maybe they incline to the modern school, scorning the traditional ghazal in favour of azad nazm and nasri nazm. And I don’t know about General Bajwa’s bent. I mean, the SAPM, not the COAS, who we know has a bent towards economics.
Shibli’s predecessor as Minister, Fawad Chaudhry, may or may not have a bent for poetry. I suspect not. His revelation of an app for predicting moon-sighting makes me suspect he’s the sort of person who plays with gadgets too much. And the app was nowhere in sight for this Ramzan moon-sighting, unless it was taken there by the Science and Technology official who Fawad Chaudhry sent to assist the Ruet-e-Hilal Committee. I suppose Mufti Muneeb should be grateful that Fawad Chaudhry didn’t arrive himself to snatch the credit for allowing people to fast (as Mufti Muneeb puts it, can’t be done without his say-so)
More mundanely, some people who have tried to turn the COVID-19 pandemic to advantage have been winos who normally drink cough syrups. They’ve been downing hand sanitisers for the alcohol content. It doesn’t cure COVID-19, but at least they die happy. Because it’s the same alcohol as they put in country liquor to give it more kick, and which usually causes people to go blind, usually somewhere in Tamil Nadu.
I wonder who gave them the idea that alcohol was a cure for COVID-19. Probably Donald Trump. He said that bleach was a cure or a preventive. It wasn’t, though it seems they’ve found a medicine that helps. It doesn’t cure, but it seems to help enough so that, taken with other drugs (perhaps like the one Japanese researchers have found promising, it would be a huge help. Wonder which drug companies are going to make a lot of money from this?
Meanwhile, online education is continuing. I wonder who attendance is marked these days. And whether proxies are marked as before. I’ve heard a hushed discussion wondering about how medical students were carrying out dissections, and how much of a premium there was on snagging a younger sibling. Of course, that would probably depend on connectivity.
Two figures who have passed on, but not because of Covid-19, though in the danger range, were Indian actors Irfan Khan and Rishi Kapoor. Khan’s departure created a gap, for he was a great actor, but Rishi Kapoor meant the passage of their youth to a whole generation. He was the face of the 1970s for so many.
And it seems we must go on the death-watch again, as we first watched Prithviraj’s sons pass, and now the first of his grandsons to go. True, there’s fourth generation in showbiz, in Rishi’s own son Ranbir, as well as his nieces Karishma and Kareena. But none really sums up an era.
Did Umar Akmal represent an era? Not enough to stop him from getting a three-year ban for not reporting bookies approaching him during the PSL. I wonder if his exposing himself at the National Academy had anything to do with it? Monty Panesar, the England leftarmer, got thrown out of the game for doing the same, but then he was totally sozzled.
