IT speaks volumes for a country’s psyche when a playful stunt is taken not with the smile and the mock censure that it deserves, but with bellows of outrage and grievously lacerated sentiments.

The latter was in considerable display in the wake of a video that, earlier this week, was uploaded to the internet showing a young woman sashaying her way down the aisle of a stationary and empty plane and then stepping out onto the tarmac to perform what is known in the online world as the ‘Kiki Challenge’.

This game, currently causing young people around the world to bestir themselves, is played by stepping out of a vehicle to indulge in a few dance steps while being filmed, and then putting the sequence on public display.

The ‘challenge’ is giving parents and traffic police everywhere a headache, but here it has turned into a full-blown controversy, with no less than the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) ordering a probe into the ‘transgression’. For, argues NAB, the young lady was pictured wrapped in a Pakistani flag, in a PIA plane — thus disgracing the ‘chaand tara’.

The woman in question is Polish tourist Eva zu Beck, and while NAB may demand how she got access to a parked aircraft in an ostensibly high-security zone, according to a tweet that went out on Aug 12 from the national carrier’s official account: “[…] global citizen […] has been exploring Pakistan flying #PIA. She will be celebrating Independence Day in a style never before attempted in the world! Stay tuned for updates”. (PIA later said the tweet had been deleted).

Ms Zu Beck has apologised, though it’s beyond anyone’s guess why she should be made to feel the need to.

More importantly, has NAB nothing better to do than play morality police and make a ridiculous exploit look like a national security breach?

On its part, PIA, instead of being on the defensive and instituting its own inquiry, should have asked NAB to stay out of the affair.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2018