“How can you tell the man with the power from others?”
“Power?”
“You know the real decision maker rather than someone who may have the trappings of power but no power.”
“Trapping? Seriously? That word went out of style decades ago.”
“I don’t agree anyway have you noticed that throughout the world the man who wields power sits at the head of the table unless of course there is a team of negotiators with him or her and then they sit opposite to each other.”
“Our First Lady of Punjab does not….”
“She is a trailblazer but going back to a seating arrangement in practice world-wide that sounds like you are resuscitating the now dead ideology of globalization - there is no free movement of peoples or capital or even goods what with the tariffs.”
“As a Pakistani national there was no freedom of movement in any case.”
“There you go, and now our government is extending easy visa policy for countries around the world but it isn’t being reciprocated….”
“Courtesy Greedy for Portfolios Samdhi, who chaired a meeting whereby he supported the sugar price that was due to first allowing exports thereby creating a shortage…”
“Well, he cut the rate by 10 rupees and allowed the raise of more than 60 rupees per kg as a result of allowing exports to stand.”
“Shut up, that’s a part of the reconciliation spirit. Anyway, have you noticed another change in the seating arrangements at the Oval Office post-Trump inauguration?”
“No, all visitors are seated to the right of the President, as in the past. Though come to think of it why, right? I mean why not left of him because all who visit are in a subordinate role if you know what I mean….”
“Why in your book, the left is subordinate to the right?”
“Good point, but in the case of the Oval Office the visitors sit to the right of the President, but the viewers see the visitor sitting to the left of the President, so there you have it.”
“Speaking of change, I have noticed one. The cameras have begun showing those seated on the sofa at a perpendicular to where the President is seated,on which the vice-president as well as at least two of the cabinet members are seated because they jump in to attack the visitor. I mean I don’t remember this configuration from previous Oval Office press conferences….”
“President Zardari was seated at the head of the table when he went off to Balochistan.”
“That maybe because he had kinda engineered the Balochistan government.”
“Shahbaz Sharif was seated with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia in an Oval Office type seating arrangement but perpendicular to his chair was our chief of army staff.”
“It wasn’t perpendicular, it was at an angle.”
“Don’t be facetious.”
“Anyway for lesser mortals, read the rest of the forty plus Cabinet, we have Atta Tarar, our Squeakiest Information Minister ever doing the honours – he restates everything that his cabinet colleague says though he is not seated perpendicular…..”
“You have gone off on a tangent. First he has never ever been seen seated next to the prime minister and second when you say lesser mortals surely you know that some mortals are more equal than others.”
“I stand corrected.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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