Of shoes and men with balls

Amidst all the heart wrenching news that has been coming from Pakistan for the past two weeks now, I cant believe things have started to sound so funny all of a sudden.

Just a day ago a pair of shoes were hurled at President Zardari in Birmingham and no matter how much Kaira is denying the incident, there must be some truth in it as it has been covered by international media. Not that I believe everything that the international media says but if the news was wrong in fact, I am still unable to comprehend why was the transmission of most news channels banned in Pakistan? And from what I have read, I understand Jang distributors were threatened too and thus the distribution got delayed by several hours. Whether it really happened or not, it did bring smiles to faces of thousands of Pakistanis all over the world who were tingled just by the thought of it. Add to it some of the funniest tweets and there you have it: a comical whirlwind which was more of a relief for the distressed people.

But there was some even better stuff coming up. In the last test between Pakistan and England, Umar Gul emerged as the highest scoring Pakistani batsman. It was actually a bit embarrassing to see how the rest of the team just toppled. The 2nd test was proving to be no different till later during the day, Zulqarnain Haider and Mohammed Amir came on the crease. Magic happened from then onwards. It made me proud to see (while following score on cricinfo.com) how these new young players were fighting back for perhaps not a victory but for an honorable defeat. And then came Ajmal. His maiden 50 alongwith Haider’s 88 gave Pakistan some hope. We have a match on our hands now, baby!!!

We should now only have 10 bowlers in the team alongwith a wicketkeeper who can bat. That actually seems like the only combination that’s working for a change!

 

Happy Independence Day?

32 killed in Karachi over MP’s murder. 2.5 million affected by floods. President chilling in the UK. And begging. Mostly chilling though.

Whether I like her not, Fatima Bhutto’s tweet summed up the whole situation in a manner that can only be called complete.

Pakistan is going through a really tough time and the President’s visit could not be more untimely than this. During this one past week, there has been a plane crash killing 152 innocent civilians, the country is drowning in a flood which is most probably the worst in 80 years, an MPA has been murdered brutally in a masjid and the violence that followed has already taken lives of nearly 50 people already. And its not only about people who have died, what about the people who are still alive? There has been a financial fall out of all these events. The flood has hugely affected agricultural lands in both Punjab and Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, 2.5 million people have been displaced and immediately need food and shelter, vehicles worth millions of rupees were torched yesterday in Karachi and businessmen have lost billions in the strike today.

And our politicians are happy justifying their fake degrees while our President is partying in London in his suite at Hyatt Regency where he has booked 18 rooms on the same floor where half of the rooms will remain unoccupied during his visit. I wish the President had listened to other politicians for a change!

Just 10 days later Pakistan will be celebrating its 63rd independence anniversary, but is there something to celebrate?

 

What really went wrong?

A country which was thought of as some state in India merely a decade ago now seems to have some sort of connection with anything and everything hat makes headlines. Be it the alleged father of MJ’s youngest son ‘Blanket’, Sania Mirza’s husband Shoaib Malik who notoriously married an Indian girl and then denied it only to later accept it, the young men who paralyzed Mumbai for 3 days and the lone operator Faisal Shehzad who nearly blew up Times Square all happen to be Pakistanis.

I wonder at times what really went wrong? Was it Jinnah’s death when Pakistan was only in its infancy days? Or was it the undemolished (is that a word!?) feudal system? Or was it the corrupt political system?