A full stop in Pakistan
Jyoti Malhotra -
Sunday, September 21, 2008 12:33 PM
Only a day after the magnificent clock that eats time, the Corpus clock, was unveiled in its new grand surround by Stephen Hawking at Cambridge University, Pakistan suffered its greatest seizure in recent history : The Marriott hotel, a byword in familiarity and luxury in Islamabad, was gutted by a 1000-kilogram suicide bomb attack on Saturday evening, just when people were breaking their evening fast, many of them at the various restaurants at the Mariott.
And so it is the morning after. Islamabad, indeed all of Pakistan, is numb with incoherence and despair, and a sense of God Only Knows. On the phone line from Islamabad, several friends talk about the meaninglessness of living in an age with no markers and total uncertainty. Ab Pakistan ka koi haal hi nahi raha, says Shazreh, preempting the question, kya haal hai, or, how are things? Or, how are the times treating you?
In Pakistan, she means, the times are so bad the question is irrelevant. Even the Corpus clock that zigzags through the minutes, its grasshopper eyes keeping a watchful eye on the LED seconds, cannot comprehend the brutal disregard of the terrorist whose one aim is to throw a spanner in the circle of life. After me, says the terrorist, the deluge. It doesnt matter if I bomb my country back to the Stone Ages, for that millisecond I have been able to stop the heartbeat of the city. Time and tide wait for no man, but they wait for me.
In Islamabad, these terrorists who call themselves Muslims but commit the gravest violations in the holy month of Ramzan, are said to hark back to the time when Gen Zia ul-Haq teamed up with the Americans in the Eighties to fight the godless Soviets in Afghanistan. The Islamisation of Pakistan under Zia has been the subject of much learned comment -- and most recently, the subject of a powerful, dark satirical novel by Mohammed Hanif called 'The Case of Exploding Mangoes' -- and debate, and is generally accepted as the beginning of a period in Pakistan's history when religion was forced to become the hand-maiden of the kalashnikov-wielding 'mujahideen' fighting the war in Afghanistan. Northern Pakistan turned into an arms bazaar, and simultaneously a refugee camp in which at least 3 million Afghans at any time took refuge. With the Afghans came drugs and slowly, heroin became the perfect grease to buy a weapon.
That was in the beginning of time, back then in the Eighties. Today, General Zia's twin mantra of religion and politics has been stretched so far and has been through so many complex incarnations, that it seems to be doubling up and devouring the hand that once fed it. The Lal Masjid episode in July 2007. The attack against Benazir Bhutto's convoy in Karachi in September 2007. Benazir's assassination in December 2007. The quotidian battles fought in the Frontier and the FATA provinces between the Al-Qaeda/Taliban and the security forces. And now, the Marriott bombing in Islamabad.
In the black-and-white mindset of the terrorist, anyone who deviates from the line must be deleted, erased, excised and expunged from the annals of history. In the end it doesnt matter what faith you belong to, if you disagree with me youre a renegade and must therefore, suffer. I will pull the bullet. I have the power to end your time on this earth. Full stop.
Hey Ram. (The assassin knew the death of the Mahatma would throw the new nation off the rails.)
It is said that the Marriott bombers were targetting a group of CIA officers staying in the hotel, who were on their way to the Afghan-Pakistan border to fight the Taliban-Al Qaeda. Even if the truth doesnt matter to the scores of fellow Muslims, Pakistanis, who died in the attack, the irony is also totally complete. It was the CIA which armed and equipped Pakistani fighters and through them, the Afghan mujahideen, to fight the Soviets in the 80s. Now the CIA -- all of America,-- is in the line of fire.
Pakistan ka koi haal hi nahin, Pakistan behaal hai. There's nothing to speak of, about the times in Pakistan today, Pakistan is unwell and unhealthy, outside the circle of time. This is the second time in three years that Pakistan has been stopped short during the holy month of Ramzan -- the first time, in 2005, by the killer earthquake, and yesterday, by a suicide bomber carrying a ton of explosives. When, asks Shazreh, will our suffering end?
Doubt even if the time-eating Corpus clock would understand.