PARTLY FACETIOUS: Sheikh Rashid’s dismissive response

“I would like to bring it to the notice of Taintain fish…”

“Excuse me?”

“The Khan’s Interior Minister’s favourite dismissive response…”

“What does it mean?”

“Tain is a river in Scotland and…and its Indo-European root means flow and there is no one I know who is more into the flow of the man he (Sheikh Rashid) decides to serve than…”

“In return for a Ministry!”

“What’s wrong with that?! I mean the service he renders The Khan far outweighs the fact that he is not a member of the party but still occupies the most important ministry…”

“Agreed, but going back to his constant use of taintain fish…”

“Oh, and fish is written as phish which is an American band, and phishing is also used to refer to a form of social engineering that involves tricking individuals into doing something they shouldn’t…”

“That explains from Railways to Interior?”

“Not quite, that explains from Interior to Narcotics Control – remember Brig Ijaz Shah (retd).”

“Indeed, anyway there is also a Tain Railway Station…”

“That does explain its use by Sheikh Rashid…anyway Sheikh Rashid uses it when responding to PML-N leadership’s statements, and most recently he used it to dismiss Pandora Papers…”

“He is right, I mean the Khusro Bakhtiar-led 14 MNAs and the entire Q League in Punjab will ensure that the papers are no more than Taintain fish…”

“Hmmm, anyway so I would like to bring to his notice that the traffic situation in Islamabad is horrendous with more than half of the traffic lights not working, even on Constitution Avenue and the number of road blocks…”

“Hey that is way below his pay grade.”

“The treatment meted out to the young doctors was horrendous and…”

“Way below his pay grade!”

“What about talks with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan…”

“Way above his pay grade.”

“What is within his pay grade?”

“Media talks on all subjects other than those delegated as taintain fish.”

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021