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In an era in which idealistic young people have only managed to be shell-shocked recipients of tales of rebellion from the 1960s to the 1980s, a passionate young man emerged.
His name was Zohair Toru, and he wondered why the cops were shoving and pushing him and maybe even threatening to spank him with their dandas during an anti-drone rally organised by a local chapter of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf.
That’s what he told some television reporters in an Urdu accent that was a fusion of urban Punjabi and salty Manchester cockney. He pleaded that he just couldn’t understand the brutality and torture and viciousness of the cops, even as they stood on the sides of the small rally, more interested in keeping pesky flies away from their moustaches.
The reporters kept quiet, as if encouraging Toru to continue his tirade. But mind you, this tirade did not come out like a demagogue’s vocal outburst. Instead it was whined, as if sung out like a sad, sad song.
He then proved his commitment to ‘revolution’ by saying that he was out here even in Punjab’s notorious summer heat. Yes, the brutal cops weren’t even offering Toru and his companions a cold drink.
But he kept at it. He’d been deeply hurt. He was probably expecting the cops to carry him on their shoulders and storm the President House in Islamabad. But instead it was the footage of Toru’s interview that stormed onto YouTube, turning him into an overnight sensation. For some 13.2 minutes.
Those who’d been trying to decipher the nature o f Khan’s ‘revolutionary youth’ ridiculed him, but Toru, like a true revolutionary, could not see the humour in his words.
Yes, it weren’t only the cops who pushed him, or Punjab’s mid-day sun that was trying to stop his march towards the Pakistani Bastille; it was also these unpatriotic spoilsports who just couldn’t swallow the fact that our man Toru was now all set to at least become Pakistan’s future foreign minister — that is, of course, if YouTube is still up and running.
— Nadeem F. Paracha is a blogger and columnist
