Ayaz Amir

When I get my copy of the New York Review of Books I often find myself straying to the back and reading the classifieds first before getting serious and reading any of the articles. Some of these personals are very smart and a pleasure to read. Take this one, some kind of superior relaxation treatment: “The Incredible Lightness of Touch. Private, safe, tasteful. Greenwich Village.” As good an example of useful brevity as one can find, saying it all without the need to be explicit. Or this from a high-spirited lady: “Before I turn 71 I would like to (meet someone) I like. If you would like to talk first, W B Yeats works for me.” Going past 70 and still going strong, passionate about life, eager to squeeze the last drops of excitement from the great adventure of living. A woman in our climes touches 40 and everyone around her thinks retirement age approaches. Exceptions of course abound, ladies forever young, perennial sources of joy and laughter. But I am talking of the norm defining our society.

And it’s not only women here who face the problem of premature aging. Look at gents who retire from the civil service or military and who the moment they step out of office get a vacant look about their faces. You can hardly blame them either because what are they to do?

There are no music-halls to go to, no theatre, no concerts, we hate the idea of travelling except to England and the US, missing every country in between, and even then our preferred mode of travelling is to visit friends and relatives. And of course, no personal ads please, we’re Pakistani. It’s not the done thing. Instead we go into the property business like there’s no tomorrow, the army with its defence housing authorities leading the way, wea-lth, no matter whether properly or improperly acquired, is the last status symbol, the only badge of honour left. This explains the clinging-to-office phenomenon in our arid climate, no matter whether the office is political, bureaucratic or military. And no one is to blame because what on earth is one to do? Writing books is not the fashion and reading is not considered a virile enough pastime. Column-writing has come into its own, a whole army of retired personnel, civil and military, making newspapers their happy hunting ground.

This explosion of comment and analysis should serve the cause of enlightenment. Does it? Former luminaries writing for the press in a country, whose history has been as accident-prone as ours, serve a useful purpose when they are self-critical, admitting to their own part in past follies. Robert McNamara, Pentagon chief at the height of the Vietnam War, writing of his stewardship and in the process contemplating and musing over the wreck of American hubris. That’s the kind of stuff officials should be doing. But the knack for that kind of introspection has yet to arrive at our doors.

You don’t tap the wellsprings of creativity by being orthodox and conformist or staying prisoner in self-created shells. There is more genuine culture in Pakistan than in a hundred Dubais. Yet Dubai is a more desirable destination as it has opportunity and social freedom while we have seen to it there should be none here. Why have Pakistanis become such thorough cynics? Not because they derive pleasure from self-inflicted pain but because when they perceive the gap between what is and what might have been, between promise and reality, their anguish is overwhelming.

Ayaz, a columnist for Dawn, writes for THT from Islamabad