“So what went wrong?” “You really need to narrow it down in the Land of the Pure. There is plenty wrong here…” “From a four-time finance minister’s statement on the floor of the House that his policy to control the local currency was economically the right one – a policy that cost the country 4 billion dollars in lost remittances and refusal of the International Monetary Fund to declare the review successful, pushing the country towards default…why are you laughing?”
“Well the exonerated three-time prime minister, invariably shadowed by the four-time finance minister, I mean since the return of Nawaz Sharif on 21 October I have never ever seen him without Ishaq Dar hovering next to him…”
“That’s sad not funny.”
“You have to begin to see the glass as half full, I mean this despondency that you are exhibiting is no longer acceptable.”
“OK so help me out…how is the glass half full?”
“Nawaz Sharif has convinced the stakeholders that as prime minister he will turn the economy around and with Dar next to him I reckon this is his subtle way of showing them the middle finger.”
“He doesn’t need to do that - I mean he is already doing it by reverting to his earlier belligerent narrative.”
“That’s our Mian sahib! Subtlety has never been his strong suit.”
“Reminds me of the author, Virginia Woolf’s comment in Orlando: the man looks the world full in the face, as if it were made for his uses and fashioned to his liking. The woman takes a sidelong glance at it, full of subtlety, even of suspicion.”
“Hmm so Nawaz Sharif is looking the world in our part of the world…”
“There is no our part or their part, the world means the world.”
“Hey silly we are talking of Nawaz Sharif, anyway if you think the current account deficit is a cyclical issue in our country, it has happened at least twenty-four times since independence which accounts for us being on the same number of IMF programmes, then so is the capacity of Nawaz Sharif to fashion it for his use and to his liking. I mean three times out, three times in…”
“Stop right there, isn’t it an act of the divine that…”
“More like the act of the prosecution.”
“Right and the only woman on our political scene today, The Third Wife is taking a side long glance at…”
“The glance is upfront, the rest of the smile or grimace or tears or…”
“Stop I won’t have it – and the glance is full of subtlety and suspicion and…”
“And, I mean there was no and in the Woolf quote.”
“And divinity my dear, divinity.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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