“Martin Luther King said nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

“Hmmm, sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity? I can think of so many from the land of the Pure who fit the bill.”

“Before you refer to the Man Who Must Remain Nameless…”

“Even though every day there are at least 50 official mentions of him, and by official I mean press conferences in government air conditioned offices at the taxpayers’ expense, and hundreds of thousands of mentions on the social media?”

“Even though. Anyway I wasn’t referring to anyone local, I was actually referring to the ignorance, extremely sincere if you will, of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff manifest in engaging with the leaders of all three national parties to get a consensus in writing from all of the three…”

“All three national party leaders who reneged on written agreements with the Fund staff in the past and hey given that we are now on the twenty fourth IMF programme that’s saying something isn’t it! And don’t forget the party headed by the Man Who Must Remain Nameless is by all counts not even remotely likely to be in the running to form the next government…”

“So I guess that qualifies as sincere ignorance.”

“Well extremely sincere ignorance bordering on conscientious stupidity.”

“Ha ha true indeed and wait not to be outdone by the lead player in the field, the IMF, the Asian Development Bank team met with Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, against whose policies the IMF has issued its third damning indictment - and I am referring to the documents released on the Stand By Arrangement, Tuesday past….”

“Hey the guy is refusing to do the right thing by the Sharifs and resign, which incidentally may cost them a substantial vote in Punjab…”

“Well let’s put it this way he is unlikely to be acceptable as a finance minister in future by the stakeholders and even though we have paid a heavy cost - more than 5 billion dollars yet…”

“Let the legal fraternity take notice or you reckon a suo motu notice?”

“Let the incumbent Chief Justice…”

“Hush, anyway the ADB team probably went to see him as a courtesy call and in its defense let me quote from the famous author, Oscar Wilde, who said I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately, in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever.”

“The Man Who Must Remain Nameless was educated in the UK as is the Foreign Minister…”

“I guess the Sharifs are fans of Wilde – I mean none of them studied abroad.”

“That’s the half of the glass that is full and the half that is empty led them to hire Dar as finance minister again and again and again and again…”

“Four times hunh!? Three times a lady, but I guess four times makes me think of the timing of a medication for an unnamed illness.”

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