| The story was apocryphal once but has acquired the patina of fact. It pertained to a remark by the American millionaire Mr J. J. Astor, who on seeing the shards of the fatal iceberg strewn on the decks of the Titanic, muttered: ‘I had asked for ice, but this is ridiculous.’ |
| Here in Pakistan, in October 1999, when a disgruntled public asked for deliverance from a rampant Prime Minister, they got what they least expected. In place of a glutinous Nero, they got a Caesar with similarly imperious inclinations. |
| Today, Mian Nawaz Sharif and his extended family are preparing to leave Jeddah that has been their home-in-exile for the past six years, to take up residence in their equally luxurious flats in London, which incidentally they did not have to surrender in satisfaction of their debts. To his entourage, Mian Nawaz Sharif continues to be the prime minister. He is addressed as such and apparently does not discourage such homage, no more than the Romanovs did during their exile in Paris and in Copenhagen during the 1920s. |
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Like the evicted Romanovs, Mian Nawaz Sharif yearns to return to his homeland. Given half a chance, he would happily board a plane for Pakistan to make a triumphant return home. The snag is that General Musharraf will not give him permission to land, either at Karachi or Nawabshah or at any other airport in Pakistan. [EXTRACT]
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| Publsihed in DAWN 3 Jan. 2006, and reprinted in WHEN BUSH COMES TO SHOVE & OTHER WRITINGS (2006). |
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