Farrukh Khan Pitafi's Official Website

It so happens that I am totally fed up with De Bono’s six thinking hats. After all, you have to pay dearly if you wear a hat in the scorching heat of summers here. But my problem does not end here. I mean it is quite often that in any corporate office or wherever you work you are asked to change your thinking hat for the sake of lateral thinking. These hats or ‘head socks’ as I am obliged to call them are colour coded. White is for facts and figures, red is for intuition, opinion and emotions, yellow for appreciation, black for criticism, green for creativity and blue for the holistic picture. But a hat often ignored by our master of self-help is the one which bosses usually wear – the hat of arrogance. ‘I know better’ is the constant mantra in such situations. Having worked with some of the politest and most principled centred team players I have seen how often a boss has to remove this hat and listen to his subordinates to make things work. But that was one hat missed. There are others. One that we Pakistanis quite often wear on our heads like a permanently stuck wig is the hat of Moaning Myrtle. I am evidently referring to a character from JK Rowling’s magnum opus who having being killed a painful death and turned into a ghost always takes pleasure in wailing out loud and always being in a sombre mood.

There is no gainsaying that the times are tough. I know that the capital is on the flight, that the changes once promised are not coming by quickly, that the country has to sink even deeper to emerge out of this cesspool. And the fact that everyone from the Persians to the Yanks and Afghans many want Pakistan either colonised or fractured is not going to help either. But remember we are good at surviving if survival you can call it. If you take a peek into our history our very survival, very existence, this national life seem nothing short of a big adventure. But if life is an adventure death was an awfully big adventure for Peter Pan. If we do not fear death or national demise what is it that is bothering us?

I know that we are a vulnerable nation. We are fully aware what chance can do to us. It is not very farfetched to think that just anyone can move in a bid to colonise us. Within our frontiers we are bickering and fighting among ourselves and two seriously blood stained operations already seem never ending. Money is getting cheaper and the daily household stuff very expensive. If only I start narrating my own troubles with my own worldview I assure you, you will get a nervous stomach. But despite all this folks, I must remind you that we badly need some patience and empathy. Is it not enough that we all are alive? Alive in this extreme weather. Should we not be thankful that the younger ones among us are keen to make some difference?

Like we need strategies for life we need some graceful ways to accept loss, defeat and if the moment comes death. In this context graceful defiance is perhaps the only way left. I for one hence liked Sarmad Khurram when he refused to accept the prize and walk out on the US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson. I know many would like to see it as a harsh slap in the face. But I do not. This is the most civilised way of registering your displeasure. There is a reason why the dynamics of a walk out are different from a real slap. Some of our friends in order to enhance their stature in the Western eye forget about that. Still others of the overzealous stock misconstrue that such instead of walking out the young chap should have started a boxing match or worse refused to go back to Harvard.

When I make this subtle difference I am certainly referring to the recently held long march by the lawyers. I was in Multan when I saw the crowds coming together. It was not a pretty sight. The marchers were less in number when they left Multan. But as they marched to Islamabad and the number was snowballed another fear gripped me. What will happen if such numbers just paralyse the state’s functioning? Yet I need not have worried. The show was very well organised. When some benighted ones from among the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) tried to assault the parliament, the veterans from within the lawyers’ movement stepped out to control them. I was much impressed particularly by the conduct of Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, Justice (retired) Tariq Mehmood and the deposed Chief Justice.

It was clear from that day on that whatever the lawyers want they do not want anarchy. And that the Chief Justice is not keen to get politicised even though the problem of his restoration has become political in nature. Lawyers from the PTI and the JI were later to attack the integrity of Aitzaz Ahsan and Justice Mehmood. It was plain that they were intolerant of any semblance of moderation. The reasons are evident. Both these parties boycotted the elections and since they missed out in an otherwise windfall of representation they want to send the parliament packing so that they can garner further support. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is already being subjected to a subtle character assassination and propaganda. Once the parliament is no more and the PML-N refuses to form another Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) the same machinations will be applied to it too.

If I am saddened it is not because of the troubles this poor nation is facing right now. It is purely because of the utter hypocritical nature of the opportunism of these folks. And above all what really breaks my heart is that liberal men like Imran Khan and Achakzai are also allowing the discredited zealots to use their names to sabotage a system which eventually would bring hope to them too. But despite that I have reasons to be in high spirits and live with optimism. Not all hope is lost. Where is my hat of hope, that you see often with a magician? Wait and see!