Partly Facetious : Ah those stans!

17 Aug, 2019

"So what's up?"
"Well there have been several instances of appropriation of land in recent history apart from Kashmir and all the while we were being told that globalization would ensure that the world would no longer tolerate annexation..."
"Russia began by annexing Crimea...."
"See the Soviets adopted this policy of sending Russians all over the country so today you have significant Russians in most stans if you will...."
"Stans?"
"Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan...."
"Ah those stans! Add Pakistan and Afghanistan and viola all the stans are there."
"You can't equate Pakistan with other stans....stan merely means place of, and while the other stans indicate the dominant ethnic group living in that country in Pakistan we went a step further and refer to ourselves as pure....."
"Pure as the driven snow or pure as....as.... well let me quote Rumi, the founder of the swirling dervishes in Antalya Turkey who said a pure heart is a spotless mirror in which images of infinite beauty are reflected."
"Hey that's not fair, Pakistan does not imply our hearts are pure?"
"Well it does in a way you know."
"I disagree."
"You stated just now that Pakistan means just that..."
"Not true, I said Pakistan means land of the pure not land of the pure hearted....I mean we have one of the highest corruption levels so..."
"What does purity have to do with corruption?"
"You are being facetious."
"Let me quote Katherine Ann Porter to you, an American journalist of the previous century, a critically acclaimed journalist and author who said human life itself may be almost pure chaos but the work of the artist to take these handfuls of confusion and disparate things, things that seem irreconcilable, and put them together in a frame to give them shape and meaning..."
"The Khan is the artist I say; he has brought many disparate people together - Jehangir Tareen and Shah Mehmud Qureshi, Fawad Chaudhary and Mufti Muneebur Rehman...."
"Fawad Chaudhary and Sheikh Rashid, Fawad Chaudhary and..."
"I get it, I get it."

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