Pakistan Dawn December 07, 2008 Sunday Zilhaj 8, 1429
A bit of laughter amidst the gloom
By Ardeshir Cowasjee
WE must never despair regardless of the dangers and the inanities — nil desperandum. Over the past week emailers have asked why in my last column I did not write about the carnage in Mumbai. The answer is simple.
One did not have to be a prophet to anticipate the blame game, it is better to wait till the dust settles. For days we read the message: if tension does not decrease Pakistan will move its troops from the western front. As Irfan Husain wrote in his column yesterday, Pakistan is the only country in the world that negotiates with a gun to its own head.
News of this expected troop movement ceased yesterday with Anwar Iqbal's dispatch from Washington telling us that 'Pakistan not moving troops from Afghan border: US'. During the visits of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm Michael Mullen the US had been reassured that warlike moves were not on the agenda. What had given them that impression?
Well, for the answer we must thank the good Lord for some light relief and for giving us a chuckle on a grey Saturday morning. Zaffar Abbas had a scoop, front-paged yesterday ('A hoax call that could have triggered war') which is illustrative of how this government functions — rather malfunctions — and how clueless it is.
During the evening of Nov 28, with the Mumbai massacres still enduring, a call was put through to President Asif Ali Zardari by his obviously amateur staff. He was told that the caller was Pranab Mukherjee, the Indian external affairs minister. Now, external affairs ministers do not usually call presidents, other than in the case of the US and Pakistan. Zardari took the call and was informed by the caller that unless Pakistan took immediate action against the suspect terrorist groups in Pakistan which had instigated the attack India would spring into action — militarily.
The president sprang into action without further verification. 'Special-flighted' from Lahore was his prime minister and from New Delhi his foreign minister, and summoned from nearby was his 'real prime minister', Rehman Malik. Security officials came into play and passed on the word that the coming 48 hours were 'critical', that troops may be moved from the west to wherever, and the air force was on to high alert. Frantic calls were made to Uncle Sam seeking guidance laced with sympathy. In due course of time, Secretary Rice got on the line, woke up Minister Mukherjee, and asked him what he was up to. Nothing, he told her. Why had he called Zardari? He had not called Zardari.
We can laugh now, but at the time it is doubtful if Rice or her team could raise a laugh when they knew well with what nations they were dealing. When nuclear arsenals are involved, with insecure men in charge, doom cannot be ruled out. The calming factor as far as Pakistan is concerned is the fact that it is the army that controls the nuclear button, and Gen Ashfaq Kayani is probably too wily a bird to be taken in before instigating a thorough check and confirming the information.
Poor Zardari! He again handed out to us all a bit of humour on Dec 2 when he appeared on Larry King Live, speaking to 'Larry' from his grandiose presidency, with two red-coated, turbaned, lance-bearing members of his bodyguard posted at each shoulder, in between the Pakistan flag and the presidential banner. The subject was mainly Mumbai and Zardari brought in the factors of the so-called stateless actors and that both he and Pakistan were victims of terrorist activities. Nothing and no one, other than the state of Pakistan, can be ruled out of the list of suspects, and he himself, Asif Zardari, is "committed to fighting terrorism per se".
He reiterated his assurance of no first use of nuclear weapons, and expressed his willingness to join India in declaring a nuclear-free South Asia. This was all highly laudable, as was his intent to get hold of any stateless actors operating from Pakistani territory and somehow become friends with India.
Where he came a cropper was when he asked 'Larry' to "remember history correctly" as "even the Second World War was perpetrated by a stateless actor, murdering of the prince if you'll remember."
Now, Asif listens to his friend and ambassador in Washington, Husain Haqqani (he even echoed HH's phrase that "democracies do not go to war"). What Husain must do is to send over some historical reading material on the subject of the world wars of the 20th century so that Asif does not again confuse the issue. Husain is a voracious reader and a most reliable borrower of books — he must hope that Zardari is the same.
So much for a little light relief, and now we move backwards into memory land. My fond memories of Bombay date back to long before the destroyers of history changed its name to Mumbai as late in its life as 1995. I first sailed into the harbour at daybreak one fine Saturday morning 75 years ago. My brother, John, and I were accompanied by our grandmother, Aimai, aboard the good ship SS Varela (one of the three Vs, the others being Vasna and Varsova) owned by the British India Steam Navigation Company.
The three ships flew the Royal Mail pennant at their foremasts and would link up with the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O) ships to carry off mail and passengers firstly to Marseille and then on to Southampton. The Vs were fast for their days, cruising at some 15 knots per hour, sailing from Karachi every Thursday and arriving in Bombay on Saturday.
The first sight of Bombay was the beacon lit at Malabar Point. Vessels would then veer and enter the main harbour, mooring in the main channel more or less opposite the Taj Mahal Hotel. The privileged disembarked into private launches and landed on the steps of Apollo Bunder at the Gateway of India.
The Taj remains to this day a palace, not a mere hotel. In 1933, only the dining room was air-conditioned and during lunch guests were entertained by a quartet led by Mehli Mehta, Zubin's father, on the violin. "Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end…."
-- My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty. - Jorge Louis Borges