PARTLY FACETIOUS: The poem written by Elizabeth Browning

“So what is the difference?”

“Between?”

“Between Nawaz Sharif’s mujhe kyon nikala (why was I kicked out) and Imran Khan’s the vote of no-confidence was a conspiracy involving foreign powers and all parties but the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf?”

“Let me count the ways, remember the poem written by Elizabeth Browning…”

“It’s a love poem isn’t it! And I don’t think there is too much love around the Land of the Pure these days.”

“She ends with I love thee with a love that seems to lose with all my lost saints.”

“You thinking of Baba Farid aren’t you. I saw a lonely Khan outside the shrine without his spiritual guide…”

“The spiritual guidance is complete - the guide is no longer around I hear.”

“Don’t be facetious, anyway the poem goes on to say I love thee with a breath, smiles, tears of all my life.”

“The Khan reckons he will win two third majority if fair and free elections are held today and he can shut down the country though how long Pervez Elahi will toe his confrontational line is anybody’s guess — I mean with Gill the Fish it was less than 24 hours…”

“No one who was anyone came to see Gill the Fish being taken to court…”

“Why the difference with Shirin Mazari? I mean…”

“The difference is the timing – in the third week of May or only five to six weeks after the vote of no confidence was passed and now…”

“So things are a changing.”

“Almost certainly and The Khan realizes it – I mean his Third Wife is not in the country, her best friend is not in the country….one parliamentarian has withdrawn his resignation from the national assembly and…”

“And Browning ends her poem by the word and if God choose I shall but love thee better after death.”

“Indeed, though I would like to remember The Khan’s contributions to the world of cricket in general and Pakistan cricket in particular, his contribution to world class Shaukat Khanum hospitals excellently run with the poor getting free treatment and don’t know about the university but hear that is well run too and…”

“I get you but unfortunately he will be remembered for his stint in politics – politics is a dirty game…”

“Let The Khan heed the words of a great politician Winston Churchill, in war you can only be killed once but in politics many times.”

“Indeed though The Khan followed the economist John Kenneth Galbraiths dictum, nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory – his own actions when in government are little different from what is being done unto him now…”

“I end with the words of Machiavelli, politics has no relation to morals.”

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022