“Thank you BAE, you made Pakistan proud.” “I don’t understand - BAE is a global defence company headquartered in the UK, with an order backlog of over 52 billion dollars as per its website.

It employs more than 90,000 people in 40 countries though I am not sure if it has a presence here in the Land of the Pure so my question is: how did it make Pakistan proud? Wait, is our Finance Minister going to claim they intend to invest billions of dollars in this country?”

“BAE as in Babar Awan Eleven silly.”

“Don’t do that! The Khan is hanging around Babar Awan these days and so he made a mistake which he corrected in less than an hour and replaced Awan with Azam.”

“Ha ha, any chance that the matter may go to court! I mean our parliamentarians are number one in the world as the most litigious – they go to court on every matter, even those matters that are clearly stated in rule books and the constitution and…”

“I guess you are right but our current Law Minister may have sadiq in his name, a key characteristic that makes him eligible to be a parliamentarian…”

“Without any need for evidence!”

“It’s all in the name my friend as you well know – The Khan does not want to be referred to as Niazi, Bilawal has Bhutto as his middle name and Maryam has dropped her husband’s name and reverted back to her maiden name so it’s all in the name…”

“Right, anyway your Sadiq Law Minister has no degree in Law but a degree in commerce…”

“So what? Dar is an accountant, a book keeper, and is the fourth time finance minister.”

“There is one appropriate appointment…”

“Yes I know Javed Latif.”

“He has no portfolio.”

“There you go but going back to our BAE thank you for winning a place in the finals for Pakistan and brining all together on one page…”

“The page is one but the books are different.”

“Indeed.”

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022