A loose translation of a Kashmiri proverb goes like this. `Barber razors a cut on the head of the one whom God blesses with baldness'. The meaning is evident. Someone who inherits tragedy, acquires tragedy. This is a rare breed of fate-bitten people who live to lose, die to lose.

Now turn the page and stop where it reads - Pakistan. Imagine any disaster. Any type of disaster. Natural, unnatural, supernatural. There is one patch of land in this huge wide world where we can have all the possible models of misfortune. Forsaken by providence and devastated by human hands, Pakistan serves as a bowel-shaking example of catastrophe. One can only weep blood at the very sight this country presents. A place where a blastless day makes a news evokes a spectrum of emotions. Sympathy, pity, rage, revulsion, and a deep sense of helplessness. Questions that what has gone wrong and why and where are being answered in as many ways as there can be.

True, there is no crisis-free region in the world. Bloodshed has always been a part of human survival. Whether in the name of a militant nationalism, or a secular fundamentalism or any kind of exclusivistic approach, human life had to fall a casualty. But what has befallen Pakistan is a tragedy of rare make. A living mass of people is suddenly ripped into a horrible heap of human torsos, with bits of flesh scattered around. God save us. Well, we may denounce any curliest form of democracy as `demon gone crazy', but if a country that has been denying democracy as a form of governance reaches this pass, is it the time to invoke the same `demon' to rescue us?

There is no need to target our hate against these young souls who blast themselves up in crowded mosques and processions. They are as innocent as innocence. The problem does not lie with them, but with a particular system of indoctrination which very few could foresee the culmination of. Now the genie can't be bottled back that easily. It has to have its share before it's finally exorcised. Riven by sectarianism, bankruptcy and corruption, Pakistan is experiencing a multiple failure of all those organs vital for the normal functioning of a country.

As if this was not enough, the involvement of its cricket stars in the spot-fixing scandal earned the rest bit of ignominy. Corruption apart, even some cleaner cricketers make an embarrassing presence in the team. One wonders as to what makes a moth-eaten Muhammad Yousuf think of a heroic comeback when he knows his days are long over. His arrival couldn't even reduce the margin of a mountainous defeat by an inch. Defeated then, defeated now. Their Kashmir policy might have changed, their policy towards the results of the game stays intact. Win and fix is still a safe bet, but lose and fix – that makes corruption sound even more perverse.

Retirement is a norm, but here also a Pakistan brand of retirement is dubiously distinct. You announce it today, you withdraw it the next. Stars held in awe apply like jobless youth desperate to seek a berth no matter how humiliating it means. That too is Pakistan exclusive.

Sure, there are Kalmadis to be presented as parallel examples of corruption. There are counter illustrations of backwardness and obscurantism from the saffron brigade. We have arguments which prove democracy run by corporate houses worse than despotism. But that is not the debate to outplay each other statistically. Elsewhere corruption, terror, ignorance, feudalism, tribalism can be the sub-heads of a story to be taken up separately. One at a time. Here they invade at once. Elsewhere they make a problem, here they make a pattern. God Save Pakistan.

Lastupdate on : Sat, 4 Sep 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 4 Sep 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 5 Sep 2010 00:00:00 IST