If you can't take your mother and daughters-in-law to the Holy Land at taxpayers' expense, what is the point of being prime minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan?

After being appointed prime minister for 45 days, Chaudry Shujaat Hussain took 134 free-loaders for a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the list including: "Begum Ch Shujaat Hussain, Musammat Shahzada Begum (mother), Ch Shafay Hussain (son), Ch Salik Hussain (son), Ch Shafaat Hussain (brother), Mrs Sumeera Elahi (sister), Ch Rasikh Ellahi (Punjab CM's son - Punjab CM being Shujaat's cousin and brother-in-law), Ms Eman Wasim (Punjab CM's niece), Sidra Ellahi (Punjab CM's daughter-in-law)..." And so on.

Shujaat and family have money enough to charter their own planes to Saudi Arabia. But what's the fun of that compared to the joys of free-loading? When you pay your own fare you are like everybody else. When you go riding official airliners you emphasize your elevated status.

If you think Shujaat is the only one to blame, think again. Junejo did it as did Benazir, Nawaz Sharif, Jamali, even corporate America's gift to Pakistan, banker-turned-prime minister Shaukat Aziz, taking a planeload of people, including the elegant Begum Aziz, for an umra trip to Saudi Arabia, billing the cost to the exchequer of course.

The Chaudries of Gujrat, the generic name for Ch Shujaat's politico-cum-business family, is famous for its broad and long dastarkhawan (dining table, symbol of hospitality). If I enjoyed a hundredth part of the generosity the Chaudry family has had from the state banking sector - generous loans, generous write-offs - my dastarkhawan would stretch from Chakwal to Gwadur.

Anyway, this all part of Pakistani humour, things to be savoured, not get worked up over. Pakistan can be the funniest country in the world, the flow of laughter never-ending, provided - and this is a big proviso - you live on the right side of the tracks.

Sermonize as much as you like, go red in the face, it won't make the slightest difference. Karachiites, an ungrateful lot, have been moaning about the huge traffic jams caused by President Musharraf's recent trip to the city, in connection with the opening of some kind of Expo exhibition or the other. They should know better. This is how things work in Pakistan: convenience, real or faked, of the rulers, never of the ruled.

Young Shakir Hussain, son to friend and fellow-columnist Irfan Hussain, got it about right when he wrote: "Lining the streets with soldiers with enough firepower to stage a coup in Botswana does not send a positive signal to foreign delegates." Good line but my question to young Shakir, why only a coup in Botswana?

God knows it takes much less firepower than that deployed in Karachi to stage a coup in Islamabad. Three or four not particularly fired-up truckloads of soldiers from 111 Brigade in Westridge, Rawalpindi - the army's coup brigade - moving to seize the TV station and surround the presidency or the prime minister's house, as the case may be, and, presto, you have a coup with not a bullet fired.

Some of the most civilized coups anywhere in the world have been staged in Pakistan, everything working like clockwork, with not even a sock to the jaw to make slow-moving minds understand the logic of events on the march.

Indeed, about the most slovenly-executed coup in our history, and therefore a gross slur on army efficiency, was Gen Musharraf's attempt at saving Pakistan on Oct 12, '99. An army contingent sent to seize the TV station was...horror of horrors... disarmed by a unit of the Islamabad police under the command of Nawaz Sharif's military secretary, Brig Javed Malik. Things were soon corrected when reinforcements arrived but 111 Brigade's hitherto immaculate record of invincibility was sullied, if only momentarily.

Subsequently court-martialled, and perhaps stripped of his rank, Malik keeps Nawaz Sharif company in Saroor Palace, Jeddah, where the former prime minister lives out the days and nights of his excruciatingly slow-moving exile. Exile endured in some hardship while plotting comeback or revolution is one thing. But exile in the lap of luxury, your greatest kick coming from hours spent at the dinner table, is invitation to endless boredom.

What thoughts occupy his evening hours? That is, if cogitation of this kind visits his evening hours. There was no earthly compulsion why he should have made Musharraf, then corps commander Mangla, as army chief when Gen Jahangir Karamat handed in his resignation. Next in line was Lt Gen Ali Quli Khan but Quli was related to Gauhar Ayub, a Nawaz Sharif minister, and Nawaz Sharif felt uncomfortable with that.

It was also whispered into Nawaz Sharif's ear that being an Urdu-speaker Musharraf would have no constituency of his own in the army. He would therefore be more pliable. Bhutto's story all over again who chose Zia over five or six other generals, thinking Zia, with his sanctimoniousness, would be the most obedient of all. What mortals calculate and how the moving finger writes: often two different things altogether.

On a happier note, congratulations to younger brother, Shahbaz Sharif, first for flying the Saudi coop for the second time - short trips for holy purposes to Saudi Arabia may be a wonderful idea but living there permanently in exile is a prospect to sink the stoutest heart - and second for his marriage to the lovely Tina Durrani.

Tina is one of the most charming ladies I know but like other charming ladies she isn't content just to be classified charming. She also thinks of herself as an intellectual heavyweight which is where the trouble starts. My advice to her: be your charming self and lay off the heavyweight stuff. Take it from a semi-pro of the marital turf: it makes for a more enduring relationship.

Why did her romantic idyll with God's gift to Pakistani womankind, former Punjab governor and chief minister, the redoubtable Malik Ghulam Mustafa Khar, come to an end? Amongst other reasons, because she wanted to share the limelight with her macho husband, thinking she was entitled to that after campaigning for his release when he was arrested after returning from exile in 1988 (exile a permanent fixture of Pakistani politics). She didn't realize that no self-respecting Punjabi chauvinist would settle for that.

It doesn't work that way, not in Pakistan. Men don't like competition. Nor for that matter do women. A woman becomes prominent and the first thing you know her husband is hugging the shadows. Who knows Asma Jahangir? The world and everyone's aunt. Who knows Mr Jahangir? My point precisely.

Asif Zardari is a more self-assured person now. But when Benazir became prime minister for the first time in 1988 and his biggest claim to fame was status of First Husband, he was given to odd bits of behaviour like walking gangland style, arms akimbo, lounging in his seat in the presence of foreign dignitaries, keeping one or two shirt buttons open, all in the service of letting the world know he was his own man, not tied or beholden to his wife's prime ministerial strings.

Having earned his political spurs - he should thank Nawaz Sharif for throwing him into jail...no, come to think of it, it was Farooq Leghari who did that, Nawaz Sharif only kept him there - all those desperate attempts at proving his adequacy are no longer necessary.

Nawaz Sharif cooling his heels in Jeddah while Shahbaz Sharif, assisted by Tina Sharif nee Durrani, plotting a political comeback away from the austere climate of Saudi Arabia. Benazir cooling her heels in Dubai as Zardari gets all primed to lead the PPP and make a bid not for power - as long as Musharraf is around that is ruled out - but for sharing the crumbs of power. What is the upshot of all this? The mullahs already tamed.

The mullahs, for all their apparent bravado, content to pick up scraps from the military's table. The two big parties, for all practical purposes, kowtowing to the priorities of military planning. Yet Pakistan's politicians want to be taken seriously even though the mountains can be heard laughing at their performance.