Road blockages, frisking, metal detectors, identity cards and traffic jams indicate that the UN General Assembly is holding its annual meeting, which brings presidents and prime ministers and from all around the world.

As inconvenient as these security arrangements were, even they could not spoil this glorious September evening. The sun sprayed a soothing red – yes red and soothing – on the horizon as Aroon patted the bottles of prohibited drinks he was carrying. Prohibited only for his Muslim friends, some of whom loved alcohol more than he did.

Shams hurried to the last news briefing he had to cover before joining Aroon in his upper Manhattan apartment.

And it took one person – a chubby TV reporter with a foxy smile – to spoil the entire evening.

He walked up to Shams’s favorite foreign minister – one of the youngest among more than a hundred foreign ministers who were in New York this week.

Shams admired her because she came from a nation not known to be kind to its leaders, particularly if they are women. Two of their prime ministers, including a woman, were assassinated, one was hanged.

The leaders are not kind to their nation either. They are among the most corrupt in the world.

Although she was not particularly smart, Shams liked her. So he lit up when she walked up to the journalists and said hello. It was a routine briefing, not newsy and Shams was happy that he will not have to write anything.

But this chubby reporter with a foxy smile and the voice of a bull walked up to her, took her aside and asked: “Is it true that you are having an affair with a teenager?” he asked.

“What,” shouted Shams, hoping that she will shoo away the reporter. She did not. She just said: “You are a senior person (although senile would have been a better description), it does not suit you to ask such questions.”

She walked away but the damage was done.

Shams preferred writing poetry and short stories. He was forced to do journalism as well to earn a living. “God, how I hate this profession,” he said to himself. “It’s a dog-eat-dog world.” It indeed was.

Nobody has any business discussing such personal matters in a public place but some journalists loved doing just that. This story was first reported by a Bangladeshi blog and reprinted by the Indian media. It was so obviously false.

Normally, nobody would have printed it but when it comes to Pakistan, the Indians publish anything. They get away with it too.

As this clumsy reporter spoiled his evening, Shams thought of other unpleasant things he witnessed this week. The chief spoiler was a disgusting video, attacking Islam and Muslim religious figures.

It had become the proverbial bone of contention between the Western and Muslim worlds. The West condemned the video too but allowed it to stay on the internet because removing it would have violated freedom of speech.

The Muslims want it removed because it hurts them.

“We move the United Nations to immediately address in earnest this alarming concern and the widening rift to enable the comity of nations to be one again,” said one Muslim president while addressing the UN General Assembly.

Although using both “immediately” and “in earnest” to emphasise the seriousness of the situation, he knew well that this world body neither acts immediately nor in earnest.

“I know there are some who ask why we don’t just ban such a video,” said the leader of the free world while addressing the same assembly. “The answer is enshrined in our laws: our Constitution protects the right to practice free speech.”

Meanwhile, the crude and offensive video, which caused scores of deaths and stirred riots across the world, is still there and has been watched by more than 4 million, thanks mainly to this unreasonably violent reaction.

The leader of the free world also knew that his message will not resonate with those he was trying to communicate with.

They had their own concerns, fears and beliefs. Freedom of speech is important to them as well but religion comes first.

People on both sides of this divide were hostage to their history, which reminded one of the cruel control the church once had over them, branding tens of thousands of women as witches and burning them alive.

The history of the other group is equally violent but they see their religious figures as victims who had their entire families wiped out by cruel rulers.

So history prevents them from understanding each other.

Outside the UN building stood a group of Falun Gong (Dharma Wheel) followers. “Truth, compassion and tolerance,” they sang.

Nearby, a group of Africans were beating drums and chanting: “Africa for Africans.”

“We champion truth, compassion and tolerance when in opposition and lies, cruelty and intolerance when in government,” said a bearded Chinese watching the Falun Gong.

“They are after my job,” complained an Afghan journalist as she walked towards the UN media center. “They say I am promoting the people I like.”

“Stop carrying her luggage,” said Aroon to Shams who always carried an Iranian reporter’s bags for her. “It will lead you nowhere.”

“Wrong. I am having dinner with her tonight,” he replied.

In the last 5,000 years, the human civilization has traveled from caves to Mars. With a push of a button a person can see and talk to another thousands of miles away.

Yet, sometimes it seems that people have been traveling in a circle.

The dispute between an opposition and a ruling group is still as basic as it always was: who controls what and how.

All opposition groups need truth, compassion and tolerance because they provide them the room they need to resist, to survive and to bring down those in power.

But when in power, they need other tools to remain there.

Truth reveals too much. Compassion becomes a sign of weakness. Tolerance means giving your enemy the chance to bring you down.

So on this late September afternoon, the Dharma Wheel (Falun Gong) was spinning fast outside the United Nations, which symbolises disunity more than unity.

“They killed innocent people, took away their organs and fed their bodies to animals,” they said about their opponents who were now in power.

And those in power felt no need to come out and respond. They had bigger things to do, inside the UN building.

The Africans shouting at the mouth of the 47th street in Manhattan, less than 100 yards from the UN, demanded political independence through self-reliance. What about inter-dependence and relying on each other?

Meanwhile, a lone crusader for a lost cause – Shahid Comrade – was also protesting. But this time, he was not demanding the return of Marxism to Russia. So he had some supporters too.

He wanted the United States to stop drone strikes, not just in Pakistan, but the world over. “Drone is not a just weapon,” he said.

The UN tried to answer this with the knotted revolver outside its main building. The knot, however, never prevented a bullet from reaching its target, in a battle field or mugging.

“Thank you,” said the Iranian to Shams as he handed the heavy luggage to her outside her hotel.

“My life is for you,” she uttered a Persian farewell phrase. What she did not say was: “Thank you for carrying the luggage all the way to the hotel. Now get lost. I have better things to do.”

Shams did not get the unsaid message or perhaps he did. He smiled sheepishly, put his hands together and said an Indian greeting, although he was not one: “Namaste, I bow to you.”

He bowed. She curtsied. They parted.

Inside the hotel, she saw a group of government officials. Like all news hounds, she too sensed news and walked up to them.

“So, what’s happening?” she asked. “What happened in today’s meeting?”

The officials had already given their version of the meeting in a press release, which was as fake and deceitful as press releases always are. They did not want to go beyond the brief.

So they smiled, gestured and moved away.

She smiled too. Tried to hide her embarrassment behind a large vase and then walked back.

Scoundrels we all are. And charming too.

“No great scoundrel is ever uninteresting.”