"I heard the Nawalas, Nawaz Sharifs loyalists content to chip away a bite at a time, were extremely upset at you referring to Asad Umer as the lion. I mean the lion symbol belongs to Nawaz Sharif's party and...."
"I say their English requires a revisit. First Nawaz Sharif is a sher, tiger, not a babbar sher, lion, besides you and I both know that poor Asad Umer is grappling with his two inheritances - one, the appalling state of the economy and the other one his very name given by loving parents who wanted their son to roar like a lion and, wait let me finish what did you mean when you said chip away a bite at a time..."
"Defining bite at a time depends on who you are, which party you belong to, anyway Umer used to roar like a lion when he was in the opposition, and when The Khan was not too engaged in the legislature..."
"The Khan is still not engaged in the legislature."
"Its different now as responsibility for legislation is his and his party's unlike before, anyway Asad Umer talked of yet another amnesty scheme which he said is likely before the budget and I am wondering if he is deliberately trying to further widen the gap between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and his policies...."
"Further widen?"
"When he took oath back in August the IMF would have been happy to lend to us if we had agreed to contain the budget deficit, allowed the rupee greater flexibility in the market probably within the range that Umer would give his teeth to get now...."
"What teeth? You reckon our most valued dentist Arif Alvi would..."
"Don't be facetious anyway what I wanted to say was that the IMF would have had no reservations about the borrowed money from friendly countries, but now with the deficit rising the conditions for revenue generation and expenditure cut would be all the more stringent and their impact on the general public may become politically untenable while Asad is talking of yet another amnesty scheme! I wonder if he is aware that amnesty schemes are opposed by the IMF on principle and..."
"Dar and Ismail brought in around 4 amnesty schemes in five years all with negligible success and I fully supported Umer's speech after one of these schemes was launched in the assembly when he was a member of the opposition but he is suffering from the Pakistani rulers' syndrome: I will succeed where others failed. So here we go again, incentives to the rich zero rated industries, incentives to the rich non-filers..."
"You know that leads me to conclude that while Pakistani political parties have perfected the art of being in opposition, once they are given the chance viola! Its same o same o the Americans say!"
"Indeed."