Fraud in the morning

FEW cocktails are more potent than the heady mix of loose morals and burning ambition. In the course of a fruitless life I have sipped and supped with scoundrels of every description, with varying levels of gratification. For reasons that shall never be fully explained, I have kept the company of card sharps, assorted swindlers, export-rebate scam artists and patrons of vices that required invention. And Goonga, but he was more to be pitied than censured.

Not his fault really. The speech impediment aside, he suffered from full-bore kleptomania and was known to steal laces, leaving the shoes behind. Also dustbin lids, without the bin.

The point, if any, is that con artists and their skulduggery ceased to amaze me long ago. Many a red-blooded Pakistani will happily skin you to the bone and be proud of it, grinning all the way to the mosque. There redemption awaits, at least for that day’s sins.

Let no one tell you that the spirit of enterprise is dead in this land of ours more foul than fair. The cell phone rang the other day at 8.30 in the morning, which I felt was a bit early for conversation even though I’m up with the dogs and reasonably coherent by seven.

Still, there it was and difficult to ignore. The man on the other end said he was calling from the Islamabad head office of my mobile service provider (at 8.30?), adding that he had wonderful news.

What could be better? Weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning.

I had just won 500,000 rupees in a lucky draw, which just goes to show how early these corporate types get going, impatient as ever to do good deeds and scatter sweetness and light. Only my man in Islamabad sounded suspiciously like someone from Mandi Bahauddin.Then came the clincher: please call this number to claim your prize. Right. Since childhood I’ve craved calling 0900 numbers and spending hundreds of rupees while waiting to get through, so why hold back now?

This happened to me twice and the caller gave up after the second time. Here’s a tip: sound like you’re really excited and ask him to wait until you get a pen. Pick up your mobile after, say, five minutes and then complain bitterly that the pen is out of ink. Ask him to hold the line as you smoke a cigarette or two, or eat cereal if that’s what you prefer in the morning. If you have a dog, make it bark or, better, pant into the phone. Let it lick the mouthpiece, repeatedly.

Chances are the caller will be gone by then, one too many cell phone minutes having ticked by, not to mention the crude noises. These con artists don’t like wasting their money or, take it from me, encountering perverts first thing in the morning.Another scam involves an SMS telling you that you’ve won a prize for using your phone (phew, that was difficult) and should immediately dial a number full of hashes and asterisks. What this does is transfer balance, the amount determined by the figure listed towards the end. A case of a genuine, and useful, service now increasingly being exploited by racketeers.

Beware also of filling in coupons for lucky draws at expos, roadside stalls, restaurants or any other commercial establishment, including fancy hairdressers. The information you provide —don’t be a fool and give an email address — will promptly be sold to marketeers. Most will just harass you no end, with no real ulterior motives. But mark the possibilities.

Take the ‘you have won a plot near Rawalpindi’ racket. Yes, for filling in a coupon, you are now eligible for prime real estate. Just one hitch: stamp duty must be paid, so please send Rs5,000 as the first instalment of six. Seemingly genuine ‘legal’ documents accompany this request. Hard to believe but people have actually fallen for it.

Less easy to laugh away, when you’ve just suffered a bereavement, is the trickery of the scamsters who scan the obituary columns. The call begins with heartfelt condolences and a sharing of grief. Then the vile assertion that the departed really liked their products and had asked that so and so (all the mourners listed in the obituary) should also be given a demonstration.

Who knows what happens if you actually ask these blighters over for a ‘demonstration’. A dacoity by invite? It’s anyone’s guess.

Those are the calls I received, again twice, after my father passed away earlier this year. They stopped when I made it clear to the woman on the other end that I would hunt her down along with her colleagues and, irrespective of gender, horsewhip all concerned to within an inch of their lives.

Someone I know received calls that the deceased had, before passing on, promised that she would furnish the dowry for so and so. I ask you, how low have we sunk?

True, the mugs of this world deserve what they get. But some people have clearly lost track of what is proper and right in any given situation.

Enough said, for now.

imalik@dawn.com

Reflections on our “ground zero”

IT is our “ground zero” now, the Lal Masjid, from where the Ghazi Brothers waged a last ditch battle for the enforcement of what they thought was the true Shariah of Islam and the state at last acted to establish its writ. In his demand for free passage the besieged Ghazi looked certain of his right stance. He or his followers had committed no offence, broken no law. He could not understand why he was not being allowed to enforce the law of God in a country created in the name of Islam.

The poor man died absolutely convinced of his rightness. Fanaticism indeed is about rightness, the rightness of the blind alley. Asked if he would give his life for his beliefs, Bertrand Russell said NO. Because, he explained, he could be wrong. The fanatic lacks the mental space to ponder over flaws in his thinking. Thoughts have no room there to breathe where imagination never existed.

Yet to be fair, one expected better from Ghazi. He was an educated fellow; he had a computer in his office where he surfed the net and saw IT all. So he had constant access to information, which he probably shared with his reputedly more conservative, and as it later turned out, more pragmatic brother who when he saw “Shahadat” (martyrdom) approaching, ran for dear life. Ghazi waited, perhaps out of confusion that western education creates in the mind of simple believers. Perhaps he felt beholden to the bands of outlaws the Lal Masjid had raised or had gotten so drunk with power that he conspired to speed up his elder brother’s exit from the mosque to become the sole leader of the cult.

Maulvi Aziz’s disgrace didn’t seem to bother him at all. As sole commander he would now have nobody to listen to. His own family had already been allowed to slip away to safety. He had no immediate personal concerns. He had a free hand to play with a vacillating gambler. And he thought he had all the cards plus perhaps the dogmatic faith in the rightness of his stance. This gave him the cool composure with which he tackled the circus of negotiators, the smart guys of the media and graciously acknowledged the admiration of his large coed retinue.

However, to ascribe the genuineness of a fanatic to Ghazi may be just an assumption. His total immersion in his colossal imposture is as much a possibility as that a sample more genuine of a mendacious missionary hell bent on spilling gore one would not look for on the hallowed steps of God’s own house. But such is His allowance for charlatans of all seasons and sizes that they get clusters of star-eyed believers to thrive on and even find patrons in high places to sup with.

Ghazi is around no more. His multiple visa extensions lapsed suddenly when the government lost its permafrost cool on a friend’s prodding and it decided that the safe passage that the bunch of doting bonzes were negotiating on his behalf amounted to the state’s surrender of its writ before a gang of usurpers, kidnappers, arsonists and militant rebels and renegades. His plan thus to march out in glory and in full blaze of publicity, with the state on its knees, met a bloody end. It could not have been otherwise. The passage remained on offer to all inmates. Those who responded are alive. Those who stood up to fight are dead. Then why this maudlin chest beating, this loud and unbecoming lamentation on the TV channels by some of the talk show hosts who have started inflicting their own mediocre sermons in the midst of so much hypocrisy and simulation flowing from the political pulpit.

But one must grant Ghazi, even in his imposture, was a better performer than his clumsy apologists. Cool and composed like a fresh bunch of spring onions he seemed to look beyond as all divines do for effect. This also enabled him to deliver his inane arguments with the ease and smoothness of reason. What if his chief was arrested in disguise. “There is nothing wrong there. Any strategic ploy can fail. Great generals have made costly mistakes. Yes indeed it was revealed to him that his blood will fall on the steps of the Lal Masjid, but does his arrest mean it would not fall yet? May be, for that, the time has not come.”

Now, can you beat it? He described his brother’s arrest as an act of God. Wasn’t that an act of God? Who can deny that? It was of course very callous and crude and in real bad taste to present Mr Aziz wearing a burqa. But in our mediaeval milieu it would be naove to expect such niceties as regard for the dignity of man. Still it is some consolation the matter came to public attention. Can one hope that similar concern would be expressed for the thousands of poor people who are neither maulvis, nor chaudhries or sahibs of some kind, and who are daily brought to thanas and kutcheries for this very purpose: to deprive them of their dignity.

Now view again closely the video of the senior brother’s apprehension. He is being shoved around by excited guards before being pushed into the police car. Watch carefully. He has no signs of fear or desperation on his face. In fact you can detect the shadow of a faint smile there in his eyes. He looks amused at his capture and already before being huddled into the car he seems reconciled to his fate. He gave it a try and failed. Man proposes!

Soon he reappears on the screen. His captors bursting with vulgar joy make him don the burqa again and bring him before the cameras. What do we see? A placid face with no signs of fear, fluster or even embarrassment. He answers his interrogator calmly, perhaps inadequately but without agitation. And all this while you see that cool smile in his eyes. Like he has taken stock of the situation and knows the game is over. Now even dishonour and shame does not bother him.

It is said one achieves this kind of relinquishment of earthly concerns either under the influence of drugs or through attaining nirvana. Rasputin had this power to stay cool when he wanted. His power over men was legendary. But he used very potent drugs. Hasan Bin Saba, who founded the cult of the Assassins, also knew intoxicating brews that members of his suicide squads regularly ingested to keep visions of the promised paradise before their eyes. In the closed and murky world of seminaries where youngsters are prepared for deadly missions through techniques of brainwashing the use of drugs and other practices cannot be ruled out.

The apparent cool of the clerics needs to be compared with the frenzy of the acolytes that was witnessed on the first day when their faith was unleashed to ransack the Environment ministry and put to torch its structure along with the records, furniture and the government vehicles parked outside. This grand show of burning hatred, seething anger and mad violence was recorded live and is testimony of the kind of training these youngsters were getting from our cool and composed scholars.

Ghazi explained later “what else could they do. We had warned the security people not to come near the compound to spy on us!” The burning and sacking of the renovated Melody Cinema by the seminary students a couple of years ago comes to mind. The action was roundly applauded in the madressah compound and the undergraduates gloated over their accomplishment. The Brothers smiled and kept on smiling all through Isha prayers that evening.

Then came the final showdown. The first lot of the surrendering students, both girls and boys, lied shamelessly when they were asked what was happening inside. They wore a kind of mask to hide their real feelings. It was a sorry sight. They had been deprived of their innocence and basic integrity. They were issuing noncommittal statements like policemen in kutcheries. Nothing could be more sinful and tragic than teaching children to lie and cheat in the house of God! But imagine the depth and breadth of the vision of our religious mentors, they are demanding that the facility, where young men and women were taught to kidnap people, occupy illegal land, ransack and burn down public property and kill human beings, be reopened.