Face-lift is out; flesh-lift is up.

Slowly, like the giant turtle on whose back the fantastical discworld is precariously balanced, I attune myself to the circle. Unlike the sweeper, Lu Tze, however, I am yet to out-shine others in my task. The city sometimes reminds me of Ankh Morporkh, in those vague passages where streams of consciousness shines, but otherwise, it's more mundane even for the liking of the slow-moving turtle balancing the world. The wraths of the Gods is sometimes unleashed. But the wisdom in discworld was that the Gods believed in Gods. It doesn't manifest so....in my city's case.

Unlike a city created in a blitzkreig of insights, reality offers a plethora of worries. Infrastructure is truly a bitch....on heat....with the poor dog's penis in a twist. But that's just a colonial corollarly, without the knickers and with the dick. And when we considering all the social taboos prevalent in our society, it's no wonder obscenities are couched in analogies.

There's not a single chauvinist in the land of the half-bred (or the pure..depending upon your ancestral preferences) who doesn't look up to the President Mush with great respect. Not because he has torpedoed women's right or legalize prostitution, like his predecessor General Zia who was married to the Quran. (Although Zia gave it pseudo-legality - only for two hours from 9:00 pm to 11:00 pm...a special concession for the whores of Heera Mandi.)

What Musharraf has done, and what makes most chauvinists go all smug is the authoritarianism that he upholds. And the epithet that international commentators use, with rather wantonness, to describe him: DICtator. For the chauvs, it's the superiority of the organ - as much in deeds as in the word. It is being in tune with the superficial that is mandatory and the chauvs excel at it too..

What Musharraf has done for the infrastructure we cannot really know until the next man or BB (Begum Nawazish Ali made me doubt her feminity) comes to power and the Pandora's box is opened and criticism and blaming spirals out of all semblance of proportionality. This has been the case always. It wasn't until Bhutto was lost to the gallows that the commoners realized the institutional crippling brought about by the sudden Nationalization of (especially) the financial sector.

Zia's Islamic revolution was expected to restore the precepts that were followed by the rightly-guided Caliphs and enable Pakistan to shine as the magnum opus of everything contained within the Quran and the Sunnah.

It wasn't until a while later that the commoners realized that the Klashinkov and cannabis culture from across the border had permeated the confines of the middle-class - after having become the safe haven of the hopelessly deluded strata of the lower-class, and an indulgence of the elite.

Mian Sahab, the eagle that could never land, froze foreign assets, and begged the penniless of the land to lend him money. The 'Karz Utaro Mulk Sawaro' scheme (or scam) is probably one of the most glaring instance of a soverign nation's attempt at hoodwinking the citizens.

Ofcourse, the revelation of all these glaring instances of robbing the generally penniless Pakistani (of their social security) were only revealed after the death or exile of the leader. Funnily enough, everytime it was the leader who was considered corrupt. The party or the institution (when considering the Army) continued to enjoy popular support.

To paraphrase, we are idiots who will be led by the noose to the mirage that we see at the bottom of the well where convention wisdom sees obliteration and hell.

In one of the most succinct movie rants of all time, a Scot expostulates in mundane yet fiery language why the natives of the land constitute fecal matter that even fails the test to be used as manure. Or to borrow the language, 'We are not even whankers, we are colonized by a nation of Whankers' - referring to the almighty British ofcourse. Where does that leave us, with the tendency to be led to the mirage....I leave the question for deduction in the future.

Coming back to my not so succinct rant, the state of Pakistani politics continues to be as puzzling as ever before. Even with a job in the media, albeit on the entertainment desk dovetailing the shenanigans of Jolie, Shetty and the ilk, I am as mesmerized by the political nitpicking as any of the commoners - who I, in my obsession, often refer to and identify with. (I might be mistaken, ofcourse...)

The current ruckus is about whether Mushy is entitled to have the best of both the worlds. In the times of the (last) Prophet, both the world entailed life and after-life. For Shakespeare, the two worlds were heaven and earth, and his advice to Horatio was that there was more to it than just his philosophy.

Coming to Mushy's time, the two worlds entail Army and Politics - and the prevalent philosophy of our Horatio is clinging to power like a filigree growing around Jack's beanstalk until you can get the hen that lay's golden egg.

But making it simpler for my understanding, and the rest, too, there's an article in our constitution (which too has contentious beginnings), which bars a government servant to hold two offices simultaneously. That, in the case of the President, would be of President and Chief of Army Staff.

Mush says that he's willing to give up one once he's assured that he has the other for sometime to come....or for the sake of convenience, until he's blown up to smithereens like brother Zia married to the Quran.

And as Musharraf is already past the mandatory army-retirement age, the post that he can have without pissing any of the right people (from the Army, that is) off is that of the President. (The civilians don't count. The politicians don't know how to count. Even if they learn, they can be [man]handled).

The opposition says that Mush's re-election has a direct relationship with his continuance as Army chief. As soon as he takes his uniform off (nothing imprudent in that if you're engaged in Pakistani politics), the whole face of the Presidential election will change. For them, it's the fluid that keep's the engine running. The lubricant that keep's the penis erect.

So, after a lot of bruhaha, a case was filed against Mush when his papers were filed for nomination with the Election Commission of Pakistan. (Which is often in the clutches of corrupt politicians or mafioso style army dictators itself and is always claimed to be independent of such impacts....and as I rant on, the roads leading to the Election Commission building in Islamabad are being sealed....for what, we will find out once one of Mush's hunchmen decides to spill the beans...and the development has uncanny similarity to another incident which I will dwell upon later...if there is one.)

The Supreme Court's decision on the petition filed against the President's holding of dual office (as President and Army Chief) and the court, in a ruling that surprised many, gave the President the green signal to hold the dual office until his re-election by the Upper House...

Which means Mush can use all the force and source that being the Army chief entails and get the PR machine into rotation to churn out a campaign that will ensure his re-election. Obviously, there will be some rigging, some horse-trading of parliamentarians (much similar to gerrymandering in localities but with a human face - albeit that of a callous politician.)

But fuck it all, please. Because eventually it's irrelevant whatever happens in the Grand Scheme of Things because the Gods are Crazy.

No matter how much 'touch up' is exercised, the eventuality as well as the process is equally irrelevant. Yes, it's the petite boys and starchy babes - anchor-ing ships? Or our attention?

Maybe they need to bare. Then the attention will be as rapt as eulogized by religious historians during the times of sanctimonious teachers. Or otherwise.

Bye bye.