Make no mistake change is already here. You can feel it on the roads, at social events, fashion shows, in branded stores, shopping malls, food courts, parks, on television talk shows, in schools and colleges. The arc of change is so eclectic that oftentimes one tends not to notice it. It is there … right in your face. Look at the bustling suburbs hugging large cities forming megalopolises of urban living all across the country bounding with energy.

Replacing the Prado, once a status symbol, luxury vehicles like the 7 series Beamers (BMWs), cutting edge Mercs, Lexus SUVs and latest models of Toyotas ply the roads that are like the German super highways called autobahns. Homes — palatial to modest- throng cities and towns.

A diplomat on transfer out of Pakistan laments leaving this “rich country” and going to a country that is “poor”. Really? “Yes,” he answers, “I have travelled the length and breadth of this magnificent land. You’re rich in agriculture, natural resources as well as human resources.”

Are we then missing the wood for the trees? To put it another way, are we seeing the forest as just one tree? That lone tree being politics; that one word being corruption? The media has paid too much attention to politics inadvertently diverting attention from reality, as it exists on ground today.

Why say Pakistan is in one heck of a pickle due to corruption by our rulers — civil and military? Why does the media harp on everything negative from drone attacks to suicide bombers; from abysmal load shedding to target killing 24/7?

Wish away we can’t the horror of the above truths of life, still, let’s wake up and smell the coffee as the saying goes. Notice change unbound that has taken place in your midst in every strata of society. Lest, I’m accused of painting a rosy picture where nothing bad is seen, the Human Development Report 2013, shows that the “intensity of deprivation — that is, the average percentage of deprivation experienced by people living in multidimensional poverty — in Pakistan was 53.4 pc” according to a survey that the UNDP conducted in 2006/2007.

Employing the ‘Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)’, the report has arrived at this figure by identifying “multiple deprivations in education, health and standard of living” of a household. A cut-off of 33.3pc is used to distinguish between the poor and those who are not. “If the household deprivation score is 33.3pc or greater, that household (and everyone in it) is multidimensionally poor.”

Pakistan is 20pc over the deprivation line, which puts us in the “low human development category — positioning the country at 146 out of 187 countries and territories”.

These figures don’t add up when you look at the dynamics of change everywhere.

Cold and clinical statistics at times belie reality, as is the case in America. The number ‘47pc’ was quoted a thousand times during the US presidential elections last year. The inventor of this epigram was Obama’s rival Mitt Romney who told a gathering of millionaires at a posh fundraiser in Florida that this 47pc were the pits, sponging off the government and that Romney had written them off as takers and moochers.

If the richest country in the world has nearly half of its population living on social security and Uncle Sam’s largesse, Pakistan’s poor are only 6pc more than America’s poor. Agreed, that in both the countries, the gap between the rich and the poor widens each day.

So what’s to be done to narrow the gap between the haves and have-nots in Pakistan?

Election Day means “go out and vote for ‘change’” as Imran Khan says. According to him change means the opposite of corruption. Latched to his lips for the last 17 years, Imran has fastened firmly this word around his election campaign. In the long interlude, many a corrupt leader has come, looted and left, only to return to loot some more.

Why blame the politician only? What about the military, bureaucracy and judiciary? There’s a three star military man who is getting his house extended in sector I-8 of Islamabad. His neighbours tell me that the army vehicles are visible at the construction site. Why? The house next door belongs to a couple whose son-in-law is grade 20 something in civil service. Likewise chauffeur-driven official cars with green number plates are assigned to the couple for their use. Why? The state pays for such abuse.

While we wait at a car dealership and service station in Pindi to get our car serviced, the customary tea is brought in. “He’s our cook,” says Ali Haider, manager sales and marketing, while pointing to the tea server. “He is also elected as the senior vice president of PTI in a Gujjar Khan tehsil.” After the ‘cook’ Chaudhry Tanvir is done passing the teacups around, Ali invites him to sit down with us. “I decided to join Imran Khan because he has a huge appeal among the youth”, says Tanvir, 35. “The young people in my area slowly but surely supported me to fight the existing corrupt mafia that was in control. The PTI is the only political party that held free, fair and transparent intra-party elections at the Union Council level. As a blue collar worker, the PTI gave me the platform that I was seeking to change the life of my community”.

Change is already here. The passion and words of an ordinary cook who has risen from the grassroots to fight for a better Pakistan, is a testimony to this claim. Tanvir’s a matriculate, whose statements are being picked up by the press, including this newspaper. Last week he organised a corner meeting. “I personally bore the cost and put up a tent myself, carried in chairs and tables on my head because we should take pride in work, no matter how menial”.

Plurality of views is what strikes me. I get a sampling of real democracy in this one small room. While the cook supports Imran Khan, his deputy general manager Shahid Mahmood Malik is a diehard Nawaz Sharif supporter. He enumerates the wonderful work Shahbaz Sharif has done for the people of Pindi. “As Pakistanis we must appreciate those political parties across the board on performance basis. I was in Karachi recently and was amazed by the development work undertaken by the former mayor Mustafa Kamal. Imran Khan too has done good work but for him to say that the N-League has done nothing during the last five years is grossly unfair”.

Ali is an undecided voter. “I am still weighing the political parties. No doubt PML-N has been effective. Let me give you a small example: our guard came down with dengue fever last year. I had him admitted to a government hospital in Pindi. The care and attention he received impressed me beyond words. It saved his life. So let’s give credit to PML-N where it’s due.” Still Ali appears to be veering towards Imran Khan because of his passion and commitment to change Pakistan.

At the first-ever literary festival in Islamabad recently, crowds of young, old and not so old sit enthralled by the speakers on various topics. An 80-plus Zia Mohyeddin reads excerpts from his book A carrot is a carrot amidst pin-drop silence only interrupted by thunderous applause from the packed hall. Likewise Kamila Shamsie, 40, speaks with verve of her journey into novel writing, prompting questions from the young men and women aspiring to write.

For full two days, literature more than politics descended to capture the interest of thousands who attended.

It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be. This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our every man must take on a science fictional way of thinking — Isaac Asimov, science fiction writer.

anjumniaz@rocketmail.com