The News international, Monday, December 25,1995
MIR MURTAZA BHUTTO
What would us politicians do with our monotonous daily grind if it were not for the entertainment provided by gad-fly columnists and unwitting wits the likes of which are represented by Mr.Hafizur Rehman in his “Lets Walk Out”, (The News, December 9).
Here Mr. Rehman sets out to tell a simple, albeit false, story. The crux of this fallacy is not that I attended a Valima reception hosted by Haji Ghulam Ahmed Bilour (I did ), but that I boycotted (“walked out”) of the lunch.
The reason I applied this parliamentary tradition to a lunch is allegedly-because I, and not the “boys” accompanying me, were invited to “a delicious Pathan feast complete with roast lambs and what not.
This is the essence of the subject matter which Mr. Rehman, his alleged intellectualism having gone bananas, articulated in a excruciating 1200 word, 3 column “analysis.”
Lets, very briefly over-view the agony of Mr. Rehman’s bliss before we come to the pain of an anti-climate fact.
Mr. Rehman enlightens us on the psychological main-springs from which develop this “bizarre habit” of politicians staging walk-outs. He blames this phenomenon on the conditioning of our “society and environment”.
Imagine if this budding freud were to do a psychoanalysis on the compulsions that drive an individual to become a pontificating wind-bag in the first place. He would probably place the blame on the atmospheric conditions that cause our yearly monsoon rains and not on the low iodine in our diet, which produces many a superfluous columnist.
Next (hold you breath) we are treated to an historical discourse on the parliamentary tradition of “walk outs” and how the mother of all parliaments, the House of Commons, has ceased this practice. Our scholar and gentleman writes that he has “read somewhere” that if members of the House of Commons were asked about a walk-out they would respond “What’s that?”
The less said about this subject the better except that Mr. Rehman has a great deal more to read on many 2 subject before he can self-qualify as a columnist, intellectual and preacher.
Finally, yours truly is his next victim of the “I sit where my people sit, otherwise I don’t sit” fame.
The truth of the matter is depressingly more simple. Haji Ghulam Bilour was kind enough to invite me to his son’s Valima. I gracefully accepted. That day I had lunch with my party workers at a friends house and left for the Valima at 2.00 pm, in the company of senior party colleagues. I was warmly received at the gate of Haji Bilour’s House by the host and his brothers. I was escorted the stage, introduced to the groom, we exchanged greetings, embraced and were duly photographed. In the company of our party-men, I was escorted to an enclosure where lunch was being served. At this moment I politely informed my hosts that we had already eaten.
Our hosts insisted that we must partake. The process of “takaluf” reached its logical, culturally demanding conclusion. Haji Bilour, satisfied that our abundant bellies were already full, excorted me and the “boys” to our cars. The entire Bilour clan was present to bid us farewell. The hospitality was warm and gracious. Nothing was amiss except, that is, the misplaced commentary of a few local tabloids and the mighty column of Hafizur Rehman.
The “boys” who accompanied me to Haji Bilour house were:
Sahibzada Aman-e-Room; age 55 years; Arbab Tariq, 42 years; Momin Khan, 54 years, Abid Javaid, 43 years; Suhail Sethi, 45 years, Barrister Wisal Khan, 55 years.
Finally, consider for a while that, if I insist “I sit where my people sit otherwise I don’t sit at all”. Surely this would make for a difficult order. My seat in the Sindh Assembly would be overcrowded. Lunch at the family table would be claustrophobic. In the end, going to the toilet would be a public event of considerable embarrassment.