I heard a phrase sometime ago on one of those political programmes. I think it was Dr,Moeed Pirzada. No idea if it is Urdu or Punjabi but it was "leer fakeer". I understand it means somebody ho has his head so stuck in book that he can't see what is happening around his a*rse. No idea if that is correct rendition of this. But you get my point.
If a plane goes into negative G and begins a straight down descent from 5 miles altitude and his passengers are stuck to the ceiling. Screaming they can see the ground approaching fast.
The captain with calm voice says "ladies and gents everything is cool my readings are 25,000 altitude with steady north-west direction heading and winds in our tail so we should arrive in Las Vegas by 3:30 pm sharp".
I suppose you would be one of the pasengers who would say "cool"?
I went to Pakistan last year. I went from Peshawar to Lahore, from Islamabad to Thakot, from Lahore to Faisalabad and everything in between. I also had to go to Karachi. So I can't say I saw all the country but I did see good chunk of it. Nothing that I saw remotely resembled or even tallied with the fcuked up numbers I read provided by WB, IMF and rest of the number cruncher.
Almost the entire country is on the fiddle. Not one of the restaurents, shops, hotels I used were on the books leave alone pay a dime of tax. The house I stayed in Islamabad is owned by a family member who lives in USA. They have a left the house in care of fellow clan member from our village. They trust him to take care of the house and he in return gets to live there for free. When I went to Islamabad he hosted me and in fact acted as my batman. He took care of all the chores. He was there 24/7 for me and what I could not understand was how did he make a living? Well it transpired he was employed by PWD as foreman which he had got on sifarish. All he did was reported to the PWD office once in a while. The PWD EXO was brother of the chap in USA.
The crazy thing was he considered himself too good to do chores like cleaning and cooking. For this he pulled out another guy from the PWD team. My batman had a car and drove me all over Islamabad. I kept complaining about his 'banger'? A Toyota Corrollo 2008. This really rankled him. Before I left I gave him Rs2 lakh and the cook/cleaner Rs1 lakh.
Just before Pakistan went into red list I had booked a ticket and my 'batman' found out I was coming. He excitedly sent me a picture of his new car - a Toyota Corolla 2014. I know they cost fair bit in Pakistan and he was excited about showing his new wheels. Saying he was looking forward to driving me around ISB.
I have been to Pakistan over the years. First time was in 1989. I hated it. But the country has come up by leaps and bounds. I can honestly say I love going to Pakistan now. After Pakistan last year I went to Crete, Greece and Istanbul, Turkey. I can say I enjoyed Pakistan more.
There is life everywhere. Restaurents serving delicious food and the fabilous new road networks being built just appeal to a petrolhead like me. When this fcukin cornoa bullshat ends I can't wait to go. This time I am eagerly waiting for the M-14 being built to drive south to Mianwali and DG Khan.
In summary what my eyes saw did NOT even remotelt tally with the figures you hear cited for Pakistan. My batman was on salary of Rs30k a month. Do you think he declared his real income? Nope. Just like him most of the country is on the take.
I do however accept places in Sindh, Thar Parker are really poverty stricken and including some parts of Balochistan. My heart goes to them. Rest of the country are fat turds eating too rich food and heading for heart attacks.