“My friend’s son was beaten up by a school mate and I asked him what he would do in return? He said he will hurl such abuses at him that he would remember them all his life and he would tell on him to the teacher and…”

“Sounds like our Don.”

“Donald Duck is a cartoon character not a real person.”

“The Don I had in mind has many similarities with D Duck, anyway I stand corrected, so you didn’t by any chance mean Don Corleone - you know the godfather…”

“Your obsession with Anglo Saxons based on your residence in that country over thirty years ago is irritating. Everything has changed there since then my friend – countries are made up of people and people’s perceptions change with changing situations – two years ago anti-Muslim sentiment was pervasive in the West and now its Anti-Chinese…”

“True, but you have to give our Don credit – he hasn’t changed.”

“Who do you mean?!”

“He loves cigars and talks of all other portfolios but his own – when he was Minister under Musharraf, he would talk against the Sharifs, the Zardaris, and The Khan then he was made Railways Minister by The Khan and he talked against the Sharifs, Zardaris and Maulana and the train accidents did not interest him, and now that he is Minister for Interior he talks about the component parties of the Pakistan Democratic Movement…”

“Hmm, consistent but we all do that to some extent – the guy who gives us a job…”

“Right, so our Don said that the two day, two hour long traffic jams in major cities of the country, the rising deaths and injuries of policemen, will be resolved and oh yeah the Maulana led PDM minus the PPP and the ANP press talk…”

“But then isn’t that what other members of the cabinet do as well! All ministers, special assistants, advisers are all into opposition bashing and some are engaged in a more noble task of bashing their opponents within the party.”

“If I was Shakespeare I would rewrite the famous line the fault is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings to the fault is not in our own mismanagement but in the previous government and…and that dratted Jehangir Tareen group and…”

“And in the meanwhile we get stuck in horrendous traffic jams, we are unable to buy what we want from the Utility Stores, we get to pay very high prices in the market and…”

“But the intensity of the bashing of the Sharifs, the Zardaris, Jehangir Tareen, the bureaucrats, the market players, the profiteers, the middlemen, has been sustained…”

“And that my friend is certainly the new Pakistan!”

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021