The road alongside the US consulate in Karachi is strewn with impediments that only cause inconvenience to the public
SODAI came to me yesterday late in the evening. He, as usual, appeared preoccupied in his thoughts. Most of his friends and relatives believe Sodai walks on the barrier between sanity and insanity. At least I do not subscribe to their views. What I know about Sodai is that he is a disillusioned person. It is not a sudden affliction that he suffers from. Disenchantment descended on him gradually with the passage of time, and the events taking place around him. He occasionally looks at the heavens, and remarks, “How humiliating that a person who was a non-entity at the time of the partition of India became our ruler within 10 years of Pakistan’s coming into being!”
He refers to the reign of Field Marshal Ayub Khan. Sodai feels he has been cheated by history. I have heard him talking to his shadow, “You know brother in disguise, we are preordained to be ruled either by Choudhries, Khans, and Sardars, or by the military.”
Like most of the senior citizens of the subcontinent who witnessed the partition of India, and the creation of Pakistan, Sodai has sunk in an ocean of silence. He doesn’t enter into dialogue with strangers. I am one of his friends he occasionally converses with. He was with me last evening.
After scratching his head for some time Sodai occupied a chair in front of me, and asked, “Have I come to you, or you have come to me?”
I smiled, and said, “I think Sodai, you have come to me.”
“Then, its not Kagzi Bazaar!”
“You are right. It is not Kagzi Bazaar.”
Sodai lives in a flat in Kagzi Bazaar. He thought for a while, and asked, “By the way, why have I come to you?” I said, “May be, for a cup of dood-patti (tea leaves simmered with milk).”
“No, its not dood-patti.” He said, “It is something else.”
He rose from the chair, and strolled to and fro between the walls, and eventually he stopped near a window overlooking a wasteland. He then turned around, and said, “I know the purpose of my coming to you.”
He settled in the chair, pulled out a few scribbled pages in longhand from his pocket, and said, “This is my open letter to American President George Bush.”
He gave me the letter that ran on three pages in illegible handwriting. I glanced at the untidy pages, and asked, “So you intend to send this letter to the president of the United States of America?” “Well, not exactly,” Sodai said. “It is an open letter. I want to get it published.”
He then narrated in a nutshell the efforts he had made in getting the letter published in the newspapers. It couldn’t find favour with the editors. After listening to his story I asked, “What am I supposed to do with this letter?”
He said, “Use it as fodder in your column.” I take liberty with my editors, and reproduce here extracts from Sodai’s open letter to the American President, George Bush. “Dear Mr President,
Thanks for taking keen interest in the internal and external affairs of Pakistan. You, like your eminent predecessors, have finally reconciled with the fact that a military general alone can rule our country we call Pakistan, amicably and, of course, democratically. J F Kennedy, Nixon, Henry Ford, and Jimmy Carter, after initially rejecting Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s and General Ziaul Haq’s rule in Pakistan, finally hugged us as their allies, and trusted friends. We proved our friendship in the Soviet-Afghan War, and played pivotal role in the disintegration of the USSR.
There are radicals in Pakistan who believe disintegration of the USSR has tilted the balance of power in your favour. They argue, had the USSR been in existence, the US would have abstained from indulging in misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. But we, the liberal thinkers, are of the opinion that the disintegration of the USSR has eradicated the fear of the Third World War forever. With two titans around, the world would never have known peace for ages. We believe, instead of two or more, let one master rule the world.
My purpose of getting this open letter published is to draw your kind attention to my personal problem. I own an old Suzuki van. Last year, a high roof Suzuki van had exploded with bombs in the proximity of your consulate in Karachi. Since then, all the Suzuki vans in the city are not allowed to ply the road that passes through the consulate. The road constantly remains under high alert security arrangements. Other vehicles are permitted to pass through under the watchful eyes and equipment of the law enforcing agencies. I wonder, if tomorrow a Honda or a Toyota Corolla, or Mercedes, or a BMW explodes with bombs, would they banish plying of Honda and BMWs in front of the US consulate!
Sir, I just can’t afford a vehicle other than a cheap Suzuki van. For earning my livelihood I have to travel on the road that runs in front of the US consulate in Karachi. They don’t let my small Suzuki van ply the forbidden road. I therefore request you to shift your consulate to a less populated area of the city. It won’t cost you more than the cost you incur on bombing Iraq for a day.”
