PARTLY FACETIOUS: Where’s CM — haven’t seen her on TV for a while?

“Structural reforms?”

“What about them?”

“How do you define structural reforms.”

“Hey, I am just a plebeian – what do I know?”

“A plebeian with no opinion, that’s first!”

“OK for me a structural reform will be if I can move from the slum that I live in to a three-room place…”

“Do not give up hope, look at it as a glass half full, at least if not three quarters full.”

“How can I when……”

“There is no rent payable in your slum residence while if you move to a…”

“Oh, I see, but I lost my job as the factory I worked in shut down as the electricity bills were too high, and I am not eligible for Benazir Income Support…”

“Glass half full remember, I will have you know that under the able leadership of the Deputy Prime Minister there is free food at Bari Imam shrine in Islamabad…”

“That’s not him, that’s…”

“See, that’s why you are where you are at. Appreciating him would give you some brownie points that may be useful…”

“I thought he was fixated on the Hajveri name for his charitable organisations.”

“Well, he is patron in chief of many a shrine in the country where a saint is interred…”

“Right to each his own. Anyway, where is the Chief Minister of Punjab – haven’t seen her on television for a while now so…?”

“I think she is back – she touched down in London where daddy is and is back.”

“About time.”

“How come?”

“Well Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has won a few rounds with respect to trashing a few clauses of the twenty-seventh constitutional amendment and before the twenty-eighth is tabled Maryam Nawaz will be critical to cut him down to size.”

“I thought in politics cutting down to size is not as important as ensuring that what you want done is done, and for that the support of Bilawal’s party is critical…”

“That’s Uncle’s domain as chief minister Punjab, she is the Queen of the castle.”

“But…”

“There is no but – the queen will sail from one castle to the next – like the two previous Sharifs – daddy and Uncle. The path of the Bhuttos, Zardari and Bhutto Zardaris is not through a province…”

“Hmmmm. Let’s see which one gets to the goal post first.”

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