Letter From Lahore - December 13, 2002

He was a clever little boy, and a whiz at spelling; but he was only a little boy. So, when the scary headmaster came round, and glowered at him from under bushy eyebrows, and asked him if he was sure he could spell 'banana'‚ he blurted out the truth, "Sure I know how to spell banana. It's just that I don't know when to stop‚ Ba-na-na-na!" I'm afraid political sentiment in Lahore has taken a similar turn.

Back in the sixties, when Bhutto decided to set up a brand new political party, it was the first genuinely folk party and we all gave it our hearts; and he could have chosen any one of a dozen Urdu, or Persian‚ or Arabic terms for the common man, but instead he chose to call it the "People's Party". Probably because he thought with the addition of Pakistan‚ at the beginning it would abbreviate to a cute and alliterative PPP! It worked like a charm and its rise must be one of the most rapid on record. Then the vicissitudes began until, by the time of the present election, the party wasn't sure its name was the recipe for the goodwill of the powers-that-be. It also didn't want to buck the vast storehouse of goodwill that the name still had. So they went and called themselves Pakistan People's Party (Parliamentarians) - PPPP. Sort of they were still the same old party, but not quite in case someone was going to be picky. Having their cake and eating it too.

Then some of them discovered that if they remained in the old party, but sort of went along with this other one which had a plurality, they'd get a bigger piece of the cake. So they simply added Patriots‚ to the name and became the PPPPP! Also, there are only 10 of them, and six of the 10 became Federal Ministers, and you can't get more patriotic than that.

But then we have always had our own merry way with names and abbreviations. Like when the administration of the President first took over, there was a great public demand for bringing the crooks and looters of the past half-century to book. They quickly set up a high-powered organisation for the task and named it the National Accountability Bureau. That abbreviated nicely to NAB‚ and its very welcome activities, and their names have become household words.

Then they rolled the census and statistics departments into one and called it the National Database and Registration Authority. That quickly became Nadra‚ which is very nice because it is a sweet little female name, and it means unique and, most telling of all, it was the name of one of the bigger movie stars of yore. What is more, she acquired an image of tight leather pants, horseflesh and a whip, which, I suppose, conveys just the right balance of feminine delicacy and firmness.

Then they got fed up with television channels going haywire, being born and shutting up thrice a week, and airing all kinds of silly stuff. They decided it was time to regulate such goings-on, and set up the Authority for the purpose and then issued the ordinance, and, of course, very accurately, it was the Regulatory Authority, Media & Broadcasting Ordinance! No one knows whether it was intended, or inadvertent coincidence, but that came out as Rambo! It caused so much merriment that the name, the ordinance and the authority all got washed away in the general mirth, and we haven't heard of them since, and the silly stuff is back in business.

But our passion for cute names goes on. The other day, on very fancy paper, I got a letter which said that since I have in my time received a couple of awards, would I like to become a formal member of this fancy organisation called Noori. In case you didn't know, that is short for National Organisation of Officially Recognized Individuals! I guess that is as opposed to the unrecognised. But it is only a matter of time before some budding starlet adopts it for a screen name!