Y’know, I don’t know how the country is managing, not with both PPP co-chairmen out of the country. I know, there is democracy, but if the president, a civilian, is out of the country, while the COAS is at home, this could lead to confusion. Not that the COAS is staying here, and thus endangering democracy, because he will go off on a foreign visit on Wednesday that will include Russia. I don’t know for sure if he will go, because while the visit hasn’t been cancelled, Russian President Vladimir Putin has cancelled his visit to Pakistan, where he was supposed to attend the Quadrilateral Summit, which was to be made up of Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Iran was missing, which was perhaps just as well, not so much because of Russia’s Gazprom, the oil and gas project, being interested in the Iran-Pakistan pipeline project, as because it was also interested in the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline. Oil, or in this case gas, is where the USA is as interested as Gazprom, though perhaps not as much as during the Bush years, when not only was the president the son of a Texas oilman, but also the vice president had headed an oil-drilling machinery company before that.

Well, I don’t know if Putin is interested in cricket. I do know he’s a judoka, or rather a judo man. Well, George Bush got into a bit of cricket during his visit to Pakistan because of his interest in baseball, so maybe we’d have some desi kushti on show for Putin. Though I haven’t heard his itinerary included a visit to Gujranwala. Well, maybe desi kushti should have come to him, through MNA Khurram Dastagir Khan, whose father Ghulam Dastagir Khan, the former minister, was an exponent in his youth. Two problems, however. One, Khurram might need party permission, being a PML(N) member.  And though he has both build and pedigree, maybe Khurram, an engineer by training, isn’t into desi kushti. Two, we’ll have to wait until Putin reschedules. Though I heard that Putin wants Pakistan’s President to visit Russia first. Somebody should ask Putin if he really wants Asif to come to Russia. Maybe he does, being an ex-KGB officer by training. The core KGB, that is, not the border guards. He should thus get along well with Dr Rehman Malik, though his own PhD, from Leningrad University, in International Law, was granted for a thesis, and wasn’t honorary. Still, Zardari shouldn’t go, no matter how much he is assured there won’t be any interrogation.
I wonder when he will go, because normally such trips are made when the weather at home is tough. That means our leaders normally try to visit countries with harsh winters in summer. If that means avoiding our summers at taxpayer’s expense. But who cares about the taxpayer so long as we have democracy? And according to the PPP definition, that the PPP is in office.
But the weather is improving. We are not out of the monsoon yet, but there are signs, apart from the shortening days, of the autumn ahead. There is no sign of the winter, which is short enough any way, and rendered even shorter by the effects of global warming. A lot of Western corporations are saying that global warming isn’t happening. Of course, if they were to admit to the phenomenon, they would have to submit to laws preventing them from polluting and thus causing global warming. A little like how we view the Afterlife. The Here and Now matters, this quarter’s profits, this year’s promotion. Not what happens after we retire, or die. We care so much about what we leave behind for our children, but don’t pay any attention to what kind of planet, air or water.
Instead, perhaps because we are powerless, we join in the World T20 Cup mania, symbolized not so much by Umar Gul’s fireworks against South Africa. Batting fireworks, mind you, making one wonder why he hadn’t reduced the burden by bowling better. Next thing you know, Imran Nazir won’t be winning hearts by batting well, but by bowling. But the real turn-up for the books would be if Kamran Akmal was allowed to bowl. After all, Tatnda Taibu used to do that for Zimbabwe. Nobody’s thinking, because it’s against the rules for fans to do so, but we’re offered a stark choice. Between winning and going into the 2012 tournament as the holders, or losing and going in next year in the hope of winning. So maybe we should look forward to the match with India, knowing that victory or defeat will depend on which is more profitable for the Mumbai bookies. And they are not in Dawood Ibrahim’s control. Anyone who says so is just trying to justify something that needs no justification, Ibrahim’s son’s marriage to Javed Miandad’s daughter.