“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” “Who are you referring to? I know for a fact that The Man Who Must Remain Nameless is not following the heavily trod path of……”

“Well, he did begin to dress like Khawar Maneka, but in jail I hear he wears tracksuits and joggers.”

“Don’t be facetious - you know I was referring to his refusal to talk reconciliation with the two clans – Sharifs and the Zardari-Bhuttos though reports indicate that he may be willing to talk to the new guard in the establishment.”

“They say it the other way round – Bhutto Zardaris.”

“That just shows that Zardari sahib is the last man standing in the party for now.”

“For now is important because nothing remains the same in this life, though when the chips are up then without fail all our those who have led the country - be it civilians or men empowered by the military - think they have the position for life.”

“I thought the correct expression was chips are down.”

“Chips are never down for all in the Land of the Pure.”

“Right, anyway to complete the proverb - imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”

“Greatness doesn’t apply to Maneka’s dress sense, I somehow preferred the pre-third marriage clothes…”

“Shush, anyway, the famous English playwright George Bernard Shaw said imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery – it’s the sincerest form of learning.”

“There you go! And Nawaz Sharif is imitating the Man Who Must Remain Nameless by addressing the nation with the huge flag of his party on his left and Pakistan’s flag on his right, though the subject matter was the same – lamenting the conspiracy to de-seat him with tentacles in powerful institutions and...”

“But there was one difference – the viewership of one was in millions, while that of the other was in perhaps hundreds…”

“Let me quote Plato to you: And whenever anyone informs us that he has found a man who knows all the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single thing with a higher degree of accuracy than any other man –whoever tells us this, I think that we can only imagine him to be a simple creature who is likely to have been deceived by some wizard or actor whom he met, and whom he thought all-knowing, because he himself was unable to analyze the nature of knowledge and ignorance and imitation.”

“Well, for your information that is a commonality between all party leaders and past military dictators – they know it all with frequent or less frequent but regular interaction with gender-neutral spiritual guides (pir or pirni).”

“Don’t be facetious.”

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023