Soon I’ll be 60! I had huge plans for celebration. Fireworks, flag waving and parades – the whole hoopla. It’s not everyday that you reach the big six 0. But the party pooper general who is currently my guardian is making sure that my birthday bash gets botched. I’m trying to resist his roughshod ways by coming out on the streets and mobilising civil society. People are behind me. They want an end to my guardian’s eight-year-old rule. And yet, remember how I welcomed him when he showed up on a horseback and strapped boots to self-appoint himself as my saviour. He appeared a good man -- dashing, decent and devoted. The world liked him too. George W included, considering he couldn’t remember his name when he moved to the White House. But 9/11 was the defining point in my riotous life. Suddenly my name was on the lips of senators and generals on Capitol Hill. I gained notoriety and the world sat up and noticed me. I became America’s vanguard against ‘war on terror.’ My empty pockets soon filled up with dollars from my new patrons. Life was hunky-dory as expatriates poured in bringing with them their life-savings. Real estate shot through the roof.

Sixty years ago, I had a phantasmagoric birth, torn away from my twin by a Machiavellian midwife. My father died soon after, leaving me at the mercy of wet nurses who did not suckle me to make me strong and healthy. My body never developed. I remained a pygmy. My immune system failed to fight off infection and disease that got chronic with time. In 1971, I had gotten so sick that the surgeon cut off half of my limbs. Meanwhile my twin on the other side of the border prospered into a strapping adult, muscularly democratic. He became known as the neighbourhood bully, pushing everyone around. He hated me the most. He thought I had no business having a separate identity, even if our religions were different. ‘We are one’ he would yell from across. ‘Look we have the same culture and the same traditions,’ he’d scream. I didn’t like his blustering. I demanded he return what was rightfully mine at birth but the midwife stole it from me to give it to my big brother. Twice we fought fierce wars vowing to destroy each other. In 1971 when women, wine and song had debauched me, my big brother stabbed me in the back and what God had joined together, he rent asunder. I became limbless for life.

As I said I was a sickly child. Still I showed promise of becoming an ‘Asian Tiger,’ but my handlers were alas a dishonest bunch. Despite being anemic, foreign dignitaries found me beguiling. They came in droves to visit me. There was the Shah of Iran, King Faisal of Iraq, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, Queen Elizabeth, President Johnson, First Lady Jackie Kennedy and so many more that it gets tiresome recalling. Presidents Clinton and George W came when I lay on my sickbed. Both scolded me for going weak-kneed on the Islamic fundos. But these Yankees don’t get it: it was their country that encouraged me to clone hundreds of fundos to fight their dirty war with the former USSR in Afghanistan. After I drove away the Soviets, the Americans dumped me. My fortunes fell but not the armed fundos who stuck to me like leeches to suck my blood out of my body. One General Ziaul Haq was the worst custodian I have ever had. He was cruel and scheming and encouraged the militants to multiply on my land. These land grabbers built mosques and madressahs and demanded I turn back the clock to medieval times.

Floods ravaged me, earthquakes shook me, poverty stalked me, ignorance blighted me, and energy left me. But corruption was the cancer that brought me on the point of death. It robbed my past, present and future. No surgeon was smart enough to rid me of my malignancy; no messiah devout enough to heal me of my fatal disease. Once upon a time, I was a wiz kid, even South Korea coveted my five-year-plan; today I am a beggar going around with a beggar’s bowl. My 1973 Constitution lies mauled; my parliament house has non-serious people; my supreme court has had judges without a backbone.

They say when you grow old and useless, you turn to religion. How true! Indeed I have allowed religion to overtake my life. It’s my last refuge against starvation, ignorance, disease, deprivation and exploitation by the wealthy. I am 24/7 seized with performing religious rituals that give me a lot more satisfaction than community service. I live for myself and my God. Life hereafter has more lure for me than this temporary abode. So brain dead am I, that strapping a suicide jacket around me is no biggie. I am bloodthirsty and want to kill infidels. Never mind if in the process I die: death is cheap and found in plenty around the countryside. Death vendors are like the Pied Piper of Hamelin who lured rats and later kids to destruction.

The day is not distant when the Pied Pipers of Pakistan (PPP) will show me their path to paradise. One road will lead to suicide bombers newly minted by religious extremists and the other will lead to Benazir Bhutto sweeping the polls and promising enlightened liberalisation. Which PPP will eventually rule me is for you to decide. Personally, both are lethal for my survival!