CITY NOTES: Getting on the same page

Imran Khan was probably more relieved than pleased at the Australian victory in the last Test, and thus the series, because it meant that he was not brought face to face with some other player likely to replace him as being on the same page. Even though Shaheen avfridi was among the wickets, he didn’t take enough to bring Pakistan a win. Imran’s nightmare is Shaheen Afridi taking  about 12 wickets and setting up a Pakistan victory.

Apart from the Test, Imran also got bad news from London, where Kaveh Musavi of Broadsheret said that he had not uncovered any evidence of Mian Nawaz Sharif’s corruption. Now why would Mousavi, who had be+en hired at the turn of the century by NAB, exonerate Nawaz? The real reason hwe wasn’t able to uncover any evidence was because he has never played cricket, or has ever done volunteer work let alone built a cancer hospital. Imran has impressed everyone and especially the courts) with reverse swing. Now anyone who bowls an inswinging yorker like he did, has to be believed when he accuses them to corruption. There’s no need for evidence.

As for the numbers game, and which side has more MNAs, we need to remember what Lenin said when his Bolsheviks won only 183 of 767 seats, coming second to the Social-Revolutionaries, who won 324 seats. Not having any planes, trains or ATMs to bring other members, he just ignored the results, saying that his party didn’t need ‘formal majorities.’

Lenin was a little like Khan, as he didn’t care for convention. True, he hasn’t invented reverse swing, but he had the right idea. Just before the elections in November 1917, he had carried out the coup which had brought him to power. An interesting thing about the election was that soldiers and sailors voted at their place of duty, not in their native constituency. Lenin himself was elected from the Baltic Fleet. That couldn’t happen in Pakistan. The Navy couldn’t get representation, and no civilian could ever represent a military constituency.

The usual 23 March commemoration was a little overshadowed this year, because of the no-confidence vote and because of the OIC Foreign Ministers’ meeting. This is also our Republic Day, for all our Constitutions take effect on this day. Of course, there’s also a tradition of regarding the Constitution as a ‘piece of paper’. The first Constitution, that of 1956, only lasted about two years.

It was only this year that I found out that India also marks 23 March. Not as Pakistan Day, but because that was the anniversary of the hanging of Bhagat Singh in 1931, for killing a young British police probationer. Bhagat Singh had it easy. The ASP(UT) was on a motorcycle. Back in 1930, that was no doubt a very dashing thing, but try and catch an ASP(UT) on a motorbike nowadays. I’m not advocating doing anything violent, understand. I’ll leave that to Ghulam Sarwar Khan, who is so incensed against the PTI floorcrossers that he would like to tie a bomb to himself and suicide-bomb them. I don’t think he should, but one of the problems with suicide bombers is that they might decide to explode at you if you don’t agree with them.

I remember the days when the answer to floorcrossers was the creation of a ‘forward bloc’. The government would stop defections by inductions into the Cabinet. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ghulam Sarwar Khan’s induction into the Cabinet was why some floorcrossers first got disillusioned with Imran. Why not me? Does my breath smell? Were natural questions. And now look at them. Not just Ghulam Sartwar Khan, but Shehryar Afridi are walking around a little awkwardly, anxious to give them a hug.

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