“Such bravado!” “Indeed, bravado outside and silence bordering on cowardice inside!” “Ha ha, that’s the way the cookie crumbles these days.”

“Is it a chocolate chip cookie, or a wafer filled with cream or a cake rusk or a…”

“Don’t be facetious.”

“I am being very serious my friend – a chocolate chip cookie reminds me of The Khan, try hard as you can to slowly remove each chocolate chip from the cookie yet one year later there are still so many chips…”

“Hey these are serious matters…”

“I am being very serious, now a wafer filled with cream reminds me of Notification Maryam Nawaz (NMN) because while extracting the chocolate chips is very onerous, nay almost impossible, yet replenishing the cream in a wafer is easy peasy – and that is reflected by both periodic cosmetic replenishments…”

“You mean the addition of trainers? But the wafer doesn’t -indeed cannot change so put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

“Hmmm, and then there are the cheaper cookies - cake rusks – I mean they are a dime a dozen. The problem is that while the chocolate chip cookies and the wafers filled with cream are legitimately the keepers and the purveyors of bravado yet the cake rusks are matching them in bravado…”

“Oh dear. Are you referring to Ishaq Dar’s most recent bravado with respect to the stalled International Monetary Fund review saying that Pakistan will not default with or without the Fund.”

“He is an accountant, and therefore is looking at the current fiscal year that ends on 30 June and no one, not the Fund, not Moody’s, reckons we will default till the end of the year. Now if this guy only had the training to look beyond a fiscal year then he would understand that he is pushing the country towards default and the people of this country would pay a heavy price and hopefully this time around exact a heavy price…”

“He lived in London for five years and he can always return.”

“Then there is the Man Without a Portfolio, and the Man Who Shall Remain Nameless – from spewing venom to destroying the only unifying element in this country, cricket…”

“So what’s the solution?”

“Not by verbally bashing the IMF or The Khan while sitting in air conditioned government offices, living in air-conditioned homes at the taxpayers’ expense and…”

“As I said that’s the way the cookie crumbles.”

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023