Perhaps the most immediate question we need to answer is whether the current spell of rain is the last hurrah of the monsoon, the first showers of autumn or some new-fangled phenomenon caused by global warming.
Is there that morning coolness caused by autumn’s coming? Some have remarked on it (well, at least one post I saw on Facebook), but I’ve not noticed it, even though I’ve watched out. Or is the coolness dispelled by the fact that the new ISI chief has got a PhD. He got it from the National Defence University. I wonder if he got it while Chief Instructor there?
Well, it wouldn’t be the first time a faculty member got a doctoral degree from the University he was teaching at. My friend and contemporary at Government College, Khalid Butt, a leading light of the Music Society as a student, was teaching there, when he obtained a PhD in Political Science there. He became head of the political science department on that basis. I remember that there was something of a stir because he and his son got degrees at the same convocation.
Well, I don’t know if the NDU has a Music Society (and why not? There is an Army School of Music, after all), but I expect to see a change in the ISI’s culture.
The ISI people, contrary to the image evoked by the phrase ‘sensitive agencies’, are not prone to dissolve into tears when asked if they don’t have families, or faint away at the sight of blood. But they have been heavy-handed before. Now their watchword will be educatedness. Instead of beating TTP members while making them tell where they plan their next outrage, they will trace their footprints and find out, or do a DNA test, or something else showing a higher education.
Now maybe they can find out better why the Afghan consul general in Peshawar didn’t stand for the Pakistan national anthem. Because he didn’t agree with the music accompanying it. Well, there was a Gulf country which for some time had an anthem which was only instrumental, because no one ever bothered to write any lyrics.
Or was the objection really to having an anthem at all? There is a strain of opinion that Islam does not allow any nation states. In fact, the concept of a country based on a nation involves a large degree of theological mumbling. Anyway, someone no less than KP CM Ali Amin Gandapur defended him, and also called for more Afghan honey to be imported.
Now was he talking about the honey, bottles of which were found in Sindh Information Adviser Sharjeel Memon’s hospital room? Knowing him, it’s more than likely.
He stayed away from the PTI’s Rawalpindi rally, though he had made it to the Lahore rally, though not on time. The Lahore rally was held at the new Cattle Market ground. It was a decline for politics. Time was, you went to Minto Park for the historic 1940 All-India Muslim League rally. And the rally at which the PTI got going. Then there was the Mochi Gate Gardens ground.
Now you have the Cattle Market. So now it’s just a matter of getting herds of followers?
The Israeli Air Force would probably like to gather all Palestinians in a ground like that. Now it would like to add Lebanese to that list, because it has killed the head of one of its leading parties in an airstrike. After his death, Iran’s Supreme Leader has been hustled off to an undisclosed safe location. The President, I believe, is staying at his post. Tehran is a dangerous place, for that was where Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed. His successor Yahya Shinwar’s survival has only been at the cost of some very tight security.
Perhaps Mixed Martial Arts fighter Shahzaib Rind could have chosen a better moment to have won the KC-49 World Championship. Now he can join Arshad Nadeem as a role model for Pakistan’s youth while his sport is neglected by a crowd of unathletic bureaucrats who can’t do a push-up (except for the guy from the Police, who can do 10, helped by his paunch, and for whom even a job in the Interior Ministry couldn’t be found).
