| The foundation stone of our dream house has been laid at last. On 20 June 1992, President Ghulam Ishaq Khan tapped the commemorative block of the Aiwan-Intikhab or Election House into place at a site in Islamabad. No-one need have any doubts now about our commitment to the electoral process. The first slab of our Election House has been securely grouted, and like that stone upon which according to the Biblical Book of Genesis the prophet Jacob laid his head and dreamed, ‘and behold a ladder set up upon the earth, and the top of it reached the heaven’, we too can rest our fatigued heads and slip into a reverie of our own. |
| Considering that the Election commission has been in and out of temporary premises for decades, by now they should have a clear idea of the design criteria and relevant specifications for such an important national buildings as a permanent Aiwan-i-Intikhab. There must have been many minds busy at work in Islamabad, doodling on the covers of files or scribbling on the back of used envelops in frenzied bursts of occasional creativity, testing alternatively of what the finished building should look like, how many rooms it should contain, where its common facilities should be, and in planning such vital details. |
Published in THE NATION 16 July 1992, and reprinted in THE ARMLESS QUEEN (1994). |
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