Partly Facetious: What’s a U-turn?

“The world is round right?”

“Duh.”

“Yes it’s a cliché but bear with me. I want to make a point!”

“Be careful, point scoring is fraught with dangers if you cross the redline.”

“I didn’t say I want to score a point I said I want to make a point.”

“The difference?”

“The difference is in one you score points and in the other you don’t score you merely present a logical argument that may or may not be accepted by the one you address.”

“Right, so make your point.”

“The world is round means what goes around comes around, Victor Hugo, the French novelist who wrote Les Miserables said be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings…”

“Ok but hopefully you are not referring to Pakistani politicians, and particularly leaders of the three national parties because those birds never ever fly away, they are hunted at times but they always, always, return to the same bough even if the bough is no longer able to take their weight…”

“But then they must fall, I mean if the bough is not willing to take their weight…”

“The bough is strengthened by pillars and…”

“Oh dear this is getting rather silly anyway what is a U-turn?”

“You are asking me?”

“Yes I am!? You keep referring to The Khan’s U-turns and his party’s U-turns.”

“A U-turn is a state of mind, a narrative if you will, as opposed to a state of being.”

“But you start right back from where you began right! Isn’t that a U-turn?”

“But…but…”

“So a U-turn is the same as the expression the world is round because you come right back to where you started from, and it’s the same as what goes around comes around. And…wait let me finish The Khan’s U-turns are simply a reflection of this fact.”

“So what about Maryam Nawaz and daddy and…”

“Daddy wants her to be welcomed back home tomorrow amidst much fanfare and perhaps daddy needs to take a u-turn because the public is hungry and mean courtesy the government and…”

“No U-turn there as long as Maryam is by his side. Now where in the world did Hussain disappear to when his sister arrived in London?”

“He took a leave of absence on the grounds that if she sees him around she may start targeting him instead of The Khan.”

“Or the NU?

“NU as in Namal University?”

“No, Notification Uncle.”

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023