Nothing to cheer you up, I am afraid.
I got a comment on an older post of mine, where the commentator, while praising my writing style (!!) told me that it is cute that I have mentioned just great tragedies in such ‘by the way’ manner. I do not know about the writing style I possess, but I do know that frankly, folks, how else would one deal with what is going on around us?
Doing business in Lahore is getting harder by the second, thanks to the one hour light show (without lasers sadly). Only a few days back, I realized that all of our collective wealth has been reduced by a whopping thirty percent in a matter of 90 days! (thanks to the dipping ruppee). I have been seriously contemplating generating all my income from online sources, and have been asking people for help and advice. Yours will also be welcome.
Lahore comes to a stand still after every hour. Have any of you been talking to people? Take any industry. Take your freakin’ pick. Textile? The whole night shift, gone (that’s 30 percent productivity right there). How about agriculture? With Rs 950 per Mnd for wheat, we are still cheaper than everyone else i.e. watch how our wheat gets hoarded and smuggled to neighboring countries setting the stage for the mother of all food crises. How about exports? Rice is fetching the lowest expected rate in the market, why? Because the small and medium type shellers can’t work on one hour after every hour basis, that’s why! Count in the record-and-back-breaking inflation coupled with the previously mentioned light show, put some Zardari induced toppings for flavor and some mysterious policies that no one knows about for color and you have got yourself a headache in your stomach folks. This all may be cute in some way, but it is high time we did ‘something’.
Protests are old fashioned it seems. The lawyers I know curse the lawyers movement for keeping their account books empty for over a year, yet the movement is the only protest that bore some fruit. Only to be quietly and quickly sidelined by our I-smile-at-you president and his party.
How about correcting one’s self, being in a position to stay on the right course while being given the opportunity to bribe, con or flex some political muscle? How about playing the cards right this time? How about paying those taxes? How about not bribing the buildings department’s bugger to let you keep the third story of your office plaza? Let him doze it down, it is alright, you deserve it. How about conserving your electricity rather than going ballistic on your electricity meter? Naah, it seems we as a collective society, deserve this. We deserve the Zardaris, the PPPs, the MQMs, Jamat-e-Islami’s and the Dark Knights of all flavors. I mean, look at us. More than 30 percent of our electricity is stolen every second of the passing day. Imagine even if half of those thieves had a conscious? We’d have 8 hours of load shedding in Lahore instead of the current 12 perhaps. The milk you drink is as corrupt as the magistrate taking 10 grand for a deal. The illegal scotch 90 percent of the media personal ‘syphon’ out of hotels is as haraam as the maulvi telling you that only and only your sect is the right sect. The irrigation water you steal, the monthly you pay the WAPDA lineman to keep the meter ticking deathly slow, the wink you wink to the cop to make an arrangement for you, the line you jump because you can and the hatred you display whenever given a chance, this all leads up to this. Yes, this.
Welcome to our own doing. Settle in, grab some friggin’ cold popcorns, a warm coke and a fake smile, it seems to be a long show.
P.S. If it is any interest to you folks, do check out the latest review of Toyota Vitz at CarAdvice.pk.
