"Women councillors are what?"
"They are women councillors."
"Apparently you have not heard. According to Riffat Chaudhary, a district council member, a majority of women councillors are maids or farm workers."
"What's wrong with that?"
"The implication is that they are illiterate and susceptible to the demands of the man who pays their salary."
"What was the venue where she said this?"
"I don't know the venue but the function was arranged by an NGO and Ms Chaudhary was addressing women councillors.
"Well she has diplomatic skills - maybe we need to send her to be our UN representative."
"That'll be good. She can tell the entire world exactly where to get off."
"I can hear her using the words neoconservative, poodle...and ineffectual for Kofi Annan."
"Well, good old Kofi is taking a view divergent from Bush and his Poodle's these days with reference to the Israeli attacks on Lebanon."
"Ah, that's because he knows he is going in December. He can show some guts ere he departs."
"Right, but going back to what Riffat said what did she hope to gain by her comment. Was it a statement of fact or a statement alleging that real power remains with the feudals?"
"Yes, both."
"But being maids or farm workers alone is no bar for these women councillors to be aware of the problems faced by their constituency in which they live and try to resolve them."
"That's so true. But at the same time a maid or a farm worker has little if any control over her life. Irrespective of what President Musharraf thinks, namely, that the industrial sector has transformed the socio-economic map of Pakistan, our farm workers and maids continue to be controlled by their employers."
"Ah, so you agree that power is held by proxy sort of."
"Indeed."
"Just like when they want to give cheap loans to the unemployed the rich and the influential hijack it."
"Pretty much like that yes!"
"So there goes our Roshan Rozegar scheme."
"You can call it by any name - Roshan Rozegar, unemployment eradication, the fact remains that few of the beneficiaries are actually the poor or the unemployed."