About Prof Munawar Ali Malik

My photo
Mianwali, Punjab, Pakistan
Qualifications M.A English, B.ED Teaching experience: School Level: 11 years ----College Level: 25 years

Saturday, July 24, 2010

COLONIAL BIAS OF HEART OF DARKNESS AND RACIST STREAK IN CONRAD

by Prof Munawar Ali Malik

            The almost universal recognition of Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness as a masterpiece in modern fiction suffered a stunning blow in the form of a scathing review by Chinua Achebe, the Nobel Laureate West African novelist, published in 1975 under the title “ An Image of Africa : Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness”
            Dubbing it “an offensive and deplorable book”, Achebe bursts out into loud protest saying.
“Why is it today the most commonly prescribed
 novel in 20th century literature courses in   English Departments of American universities?”
            He launches his attack on Heart of Darkness ( rather Conrad) with the broad-based argument that it displays the Western desire to set the African backwardness up as a foil to  Europe’s boasted about spiritual grace.
            Achebe holds that Heart of Darkness projects Africa as the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization. He even finds this sinister purpose at work in Conrad’s description of  the two rivers, the Thames of Europe and the river Congo of Africa.
            He challenges every adjective used by Conrad to describe Africa and the Africans, citing FR Leavis’s remark on Conrad’s “adjectival insistence upon inexpressible and incomprehensible mystery.”
            He calls this insistence “under-hand activity” that “raises serious questions of artistic good faith”
            Chinua Achebe quotes and analyses the passages about people in Heart of Darkness. He says these are the most interesting and revealing passages in the novel.
            Speaking of Conrad’s attitude to the natives of Congo, he remarks with bitter sarcasm on Conrad’s love to see the Africans in their place. He quotes Marlow’s remark
“Fine fellows----------cannibals------------in their
  place”
            The word place, he thinks, is used in a derogatory sense on more than one occasions in Heart of Darkness.
       Then Achebe lashes out at Marlow’s remark about the humanity of the black natives :

“What thrilled you, was just the thought of their
 humanity — the thought of your remote kinship
                          with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly.”
            Achebe insinuates that Conrad was actually concerned about the black man laying the claim on that remote kinship which, to him, was intolerable.
            In this way, reading more between  the lines than in the lines, Achebe goes on piling up incriminating evidence against Conrad to establish that Conrad was “ a thorough- going racist” and the story is purely a product of colonial bias.
            But his own adjectives, ironically, betray an equal, if not more violent, parallel racism. Look at the following judgemental remarks, for instance:
* “even those not blinkered like Conrad with       xenophobia--.”
                        *  “Conrad is a dream for psychoanalytic critics.”
            While reading this review we repeatedly hold our breath in amazement, if not horror, as Achebe pronounces scathing judgements about the book and the author in every other line of the article. Look at  one, for instance:
“the question is whether a novel which celebrates this dehumanization, which depersonalizes a portion of human race, can be called a great work of art. My answer is : No, it cannot.”
            Achebe’s chagrin against the West is not without reason, it is true. But it goes a bit too far when he refuses to concede due recognition to the literary merit of a work of fiction universally acclaimed a masterpiece. He brushes aside every explanation and excuse offered by other critics. For instance he refuses to believe that the implicit colonial bias comes from Marlow, not Conrad. He also spurns the “layers of insulation” placed by Conrad “between himself and the moral universe of his story.”
            Similarly he rejects the argument that it is no concern of fiction to please the people about whom it is written, saying that Heart of Darkness is a story in which the very humanity of black people is called in question.
            As already admitted, Achebe has very good reasons to find fault with Heart of Darkness. Being himself an African, he has a right to condemn every attempt to vilify his people. But isn’t it a bit too hard on Conrad to say that he wrote this novel solely to revile the Africans?
            Coming from Achebe ( himself a novelist as great as Conrad ) this review has certainly caused some serious damage to Conrad’s reputation. Achebe ignored the fact that most of the critics as well as readers have always admired Heart of Darkness as an indictment of imperialism. The most prominent among them is the renowned critic and teacher (also a Nobel Laureate), Edward Said recognized as the most powerful voice of this age against imperialism.

Prof Munawar Ali Malik(English Columns)



OFF AND ON

MY MAN-ON-THE-SPOT

MUNAWAR ALI MALIK

Never saw him. Never knew him but by the name. and yet I must write about him. A sort of debt, you know. A debt of gratitude long overdue, alas, because he is no longer there at the receiving end.
          Mohammad Idrees was my mentor. It was he who introduced me to The Pakistan Times almost a decade back. Not that he knew who the devil I was. The only communication between us was a letter from me. That letter accompanied a light-vein story by me. Not much of a story, to be honest. Just an amateurish exercise in letters. The letter was not a request to get the thing published. It was a request to read the thing and then let me know what it was worth.
          I never got his reply. But he did let me know what he thought of the story. He got it published in the Magazine Section of The Pakistan Times.
          “ I never knew you were a writer,” said one of my colleagues.
          “Nor did I” was my honest retort.
          “you seem to have built up a pretty effective PR with The Pakistan Times,”said another. “will you please tell us who is your man-on-the-spot?”
          Don’t know him, but there is one, certainly”, I admitted. “Mohammad Idress is the name. And that is all I know about him.
          I intended to make my gratitude known to him through a letter. But I don’t know why I could never write that letter.
          And then, months later, I got an occasion to see him at his office. But the occasion was all I got, because he was not there. He was away somewhere, they told me, attending a sort of refresher course “ though he is far ahead of such professional grooming”, said Mohammad Saleem-ur-Rehman with a smile.
          About a year later I made my second call. Again to no purpose, for he was not in his office.
          “Does he come here only off and on?” I asked one of his colleagues.
          “No.sir, your own visits are too  few and far between,” he said.
          Yes, I want to blame, I now realize.
          His appointment as Chief Editor of The Pakistan Times was, I felt, the happiest development in the changeful affairs of the newspaper.
          “Happy news, isn’t it?” I wrote to the magazine editor.
          “Yes”,he wrote back, “For the first time in my career feel at home where I am.”
          This time I can’t miss him. I surmised, thinking of my next visit to Lahore.A Chief Editor is too busy in his office to go gallivanting about the city.So this time I am sure to find him there.
          “well”, said Fate with an ugly lee,”but I know what I know”
          And so, one morning, they told me I’ll never see him. It was a shock too strong for words. Inspite of my distaste for Shelly some of the lines in his Adonais seemed very relevant to my sorrow. I wished I could write something of that sort. But I never could.
          I know his death should have come as a personal loss to all who knew him intimately---his PT colleagues and Tea House cronies in particular. But was the loss mourned as it ought to have been?
          Curt obituaries appearing in newspapers are nothing deeper than a matter of form. The writer community was never so shock-proof as it is these days. Apity, isn’t it? Sahir’s death went unnoticed. Siraj Munir was disposed of with a barely audible groan. The grudging notice Idrees got was hardly commensurate with his merit.
          Few people know that a book of Tea House columns by Idrees was published last year by a friend of his. The only notice it was allowed to receive was a restricted opening ceremony in the premises of The Pakistan Times.the book, Night Was not Loveless, was then given such loveless treatment that it was neither offered for review to newspapers nor was it put on the stalls for sale. On that occasion, it was offered to buyers on the spot on payment of Rs.375 per copy.
          Mohammad Idrees was never a pennywise man. Had he published the book, It would have been given away to quite a few people who knew him. But his friend who published the book offered it only at full price and only through few conduits. This is like stifling a voice that was ever strong, bantering and rang with laughter. The killing of the book, for a price, was hardly the tribute to a man whose voice rang loud and clear, minced no words, and hid no rancour.


THE INTERVIEW

Munawar Ali Malik

“Man from the Trumpeter I hope”
          “Yes, sir, Khadim Qadeemi, Chief Reporter of the weekly Trumpeter.”
          “Glad to see you, and all that. I was just going to ring them up. Fifth time since morning, mind you. Dashed if I don’t fix them up the moment I take my seat in the assembly”.
          “Well-er-we wish you all good luck, sir, and mean to do our sincere bit for you with this interview. It’d be an honour…..”
          “Dashed good of you to wish me good luck and all that. By the way, I didn’t mean that threat. I was, you see, a bit flurried at this delay. Never mind ,and now about that interview. Honestly, I don’t know how to go about it. But I do know it does you hell of good with the masses, Hang them.”
          “Exactly, sir, just look at Mr. Shiekh of your party. You know what he was before the last election, a so-called transporter. Owned two battered buses; headlights broken, tyres going to pieces and bodies falling apart. It was our interview won him that seat in the assembly. A glowing, red-hot, ten-page interview. It was I did it. The old soul himself couldn’t put two words together to mean anything.”
          “I know all that, and much more. The old shoe’s a pal of mine. In fact it’s he recommended you to mine. And I mean to say the best of it.”
          “Surely you will, sir. They will come to you in a mass. Directly this interview appears the people will swing round to you in a mass. They will come to you to be patted on the back. Will flock at your door to get a glimpse of your kind face, shout ‘Zindabad’ as you drive through streets.
          “That’s exactly what I want them to do.”
          “They’ll certainly do all that and much more, sir. I’ll make them do it. Every word from my pen is gospel truth to them.”
          “But my rival, that hoodlum Chaudhri, is a sharp one. He’s already got them by the heels.”
          “Never  mind, sir. Just a touch of the right button will switch them over to you. And this humble servant of yours has got the button right under his thumb.”
          “Well let’s see how you do it. And, about that interview ,where do we start?”
          “It’s almost done, sir. All I want now is a bit of personal touch. Some details, if you don’t mind, about your family, date of birth, education, if necessary, and an anecdote or two about current politics.”
          “But—er—in my case all that information doesn’t make a brave picture—dash it.”
          “Oh! don’t worry, sir. I know my job. I know how to make a best of a bad bargain as they put it.”
          “Anyway, That—hang it—personal information comes to something like this. I was born, doesn’t matter when and where, in a family—hang it—of what they call lower-middle class. Father, bless his old soul, was a tough one; could never make a living on his own. Mother poor soul, died of a fit when I was only ten. Soon after, father too made his exit. Well, doesn’t matter how I got on, But I did. And now, you see, I own three blasted factories and two hotels. So that’s all there is to it, personal information or what you may call it. And I’m not sure it will too nice in print. But that’s your business, and now about payment. Your editor told I was supposed to part with something as a material contribution to the dratted magazine’s struggle for democracy.”
          “Of course, sir, a noble hint, thanks to the editor. Well, sir, it depends on the—let’s call it—length of the interview. By the way,     sir, you might have noticed a tiny box in the bottom left corner of our title page. It gives the rate of advertisement and all that.Rs.2,000/- per full page and ……”
          “But that,gentleman,is the rate for advertisement. An interview, hang it……..”
          “Quite the same thing in a way if you don’t mind,sir.”
          “Hell—but I’ll throw in a dashed sum for a ten-page interview.”
          “In advance,sir,if you don’t mind. Our editor’s a bit crazy on his principles, and advance payment’s one of them.”
          “Excuse me,sir,but it will have to be a bit more.Rs.200/- per page for the extra bit of pains I’ve to take in such cases. The magazine, you know, pays me Rs.100/- a page for a flat, matter-of-fact interview. But nobody, you see, likes to see plain facts about himself in print. So I have to put in a little extra effort on my own. In your case I guess it I going to be quite a bit of a job. So I hope you’ll not mind this sort of a tip for my honest labour.”
          “Oh,I quite understand, hell make it and all that. I’ll put that extra 2,000/- on that …….”
          “A separate cheque, If u please,sir.”
          “Let it be that,then,a separate cheque in your—draft it—name. Now let see what you are going to make of it,that interview,I mean.”
          “Fortunately,sir,I could guess before hand what I’d have to do in your case. I have,therefore,come prepared; Actually with the ten-page interview all done in my brievecase. Let read to you a page or two to give you and idea of how you are sound in print (reading).
          Question: could you give a brief account of your contribution to Pakistan Movement?
          Answer: Well, I was a student at that time……
          “But I was not man, I was—hang me…..” “Doesn’t matter,sir, in the last. People simply don’t care to prob such calims, so let me proceed (reading).
          “Answer: Well, I  was a student at that time.I did my bid for the noble cause.Work as a sort  of coordinator,traveled about,made speeches and never rested till the great dream had materialised.
          Question,What role would you assign to Islam in our national politics?
          Tears rolled down his cheeks.
          Hardly prepared for this sudden breakdown, I tried to skip the question, but he cut me short and sobbing violently proceeded thus.
          Mark my word Mr.Khadim. I would gladly lay down my life to make Pakistan a truly Islamic state, a model Islamic republic, a lowing example for other muslim states to follow. I have already cried myself hoarse clamouring for purely Islamic system of government,but,alas! my feeble cries have always fallen on deaf ears…….”   
          “Wonderful,Mr.Khadim. Beats every thing. You’re surely one of the ones. Hanged if it doesn’t work. Oh how they will hang on these charming words. Allow me,sir,to  make you another little present, a token of my infinite gratitude,sir. This third little cheque,sir,I beg you on my knees to accept it, please do…..”


THE IMPOSSIBLE CAT

“Did you see today’s Dashed Times?” 
          “Yes”
          “My latest short story appeared on page 5. The Green Monkey’s the title. You must read that story.”
          “I did see something under your name. It’s short all right, but where’s the story?”
          “Don’t you regard it as a story?”
          “I wish I could.”
          “Why, by my soul --- and yours too, it’s a story from the first word to the last full stop. That full stop, mind you, has a hell of meaning in it.”
          “Skillfully handled punctuation does wonders, they say.”
          “Mine, for instance, means more than my word.”
          “I always thought so, because words --- your words in particular --- never lead me anywhere. The punctuation, therefore, comes as a welcome relief. Why, I often wonder, don’t you try to compose a story entirely of punctuation marks? The word you know, is the only trace of convention that still hangs on to modern literature. Why not get rid of it? The modern writer can, if he tries. It only wants initiative and he’s got deuced lot of that.”
          “Now you have broached the subject I must tell you that I am already well on my way to that end. Only last week I wrote a devilish good short story of five foolscap pages with no more than five words in it. All the rest of the job was done by commas, full stops, colons and all that.” 
          “Wonderful, no doubt ! But why don’t you get it published? Somebody must step forth as a pioneer. Why not you?”
          “Oh, I did send it to that to weekly Crazy Mods. But they sent it back with a note. “Even we”, the note said, “can’t go that far.” And now about that story of mine in the Dashed Times. Did you get the hang of it?”
          “Sorry, I was just going to ask you to explain it.”
          “Why, it’s damned too simple. An intelligent reader like you---.”
          “Honestly, I am sort of losing my hold on things, short stories not expected. Age, worries, want of time and all that, you know. So much so that the other day I tried to make a go with Great Expectations, and dashed if I got half the head or tail of what I read.”
          “Great Expectations? What’s that?”
          “A novel by Charles Dickens.”
          “And who the Dickens is this chap supposed to be?”
          “A giant in 19th-century fiction”
          Nineteenth-century fiction! Why, man, you’re really doomed. Let me inform you, sir, that there’s never been anything worth the name fiction before the late 1970s. Nineteenth-century fiction, pah! You might just as well as say seventh-century TV or fifth-century VCR. Fiction, my chick, came to be written only in the late 70s. And now back to that short story of mine. Do you know what the twelve-tailed green monkey stands for?”
          “I’m not quite sure.”
          “And the rabbit in green overcoat?”
          “And the triangular sun?”
          “Must be a symbol for---------I don’t know what.”
          “Now that beats me quite to bits.”
          “Poor taste. Not keeping pace with things. Instead, running backwards alongside. The process of evolution reversed at break-neck aped. A few days more of this decline and you’ll be a vegetable if not something more primitive.”
“I know I’ll be reduced to something like that but I wish to be saved. I need somebody to pull me back.”
“I’ll do that. You just listen to me as I explain that story.”
And he rattled on for full three hours, highlighting the modern trends and techniques in fiction. It took me three cups of strong tea and three aspirins to survive that fiendish lecture.
A couple of days later, his next short story; The Impossible Cat, appeared in Dashed Times. Three days after that they told me he was in hospital, thrashed to within an inch of death by the son of an admirer. That admirer, a retired old police officer, had not been quite himself since the moment he had gone through the Impossible Cat. The first indication of his not being quite himself has come as the murder of his wife. He shot her dead because she, he said, had killed the Impossible Cat. At first they thought that the Impossible Cat was just a piece of madman’s nonsense. But then his eldest son had suddenly come upon the title in a three-day-old copy of the Dashed Times. He did not read the whole story. He just walked into the office of the Dashed Times, got the author’s address and walked quietly out.
And just an hour ago I was with the author in the hospital. He is really in a sore condition, bruises, scratches, fractures and all that, but nothing likely to prove fatal unless the assailant makes another attempt. Mentally, however, he is still as close to normal as he ever was. The incident, he says was the last violent struggle of a receding crestfallen realism against dynamic overriding symbolism. In the history of fiction he is sure, it would go with a bunch of laurels for him.

                  
Man with a Commission

What a family Mr. Alkamands belongs to; some of the top-notch Alkamunian VIPs some of that noble stock. his uncle, Prof. Alkmush, for instance, is Chairman of the Education Commission.
A week ago Mr. Alkamand told me this illustrious personage was due in the town and was scheduled to occupy a room on the second floor of hotel Alkamand.
Great news, to be sure. I thanked Mr. Alkamand, adding a desire to be introduced to the great educationist.
“I wish I could, arrange it”, sighed Mr. Alkamand, shaking his head hopelessly. “If there’s one thing my uncle stands in mortal horror of, it’s a tete-a-tete with a newsman. See no reason why he should be so allergic to this particular species of mankind. But he is, all the same.”
“Never mind his allergy, Alkamand”, said I brightening up with a flash of ingenuity. “You should introduce me as a teacher from Pakistan.” “Wonderful!” ejaculated Mr. ALkamand, You’ve hit it, Malik, right on the head. Okay, you shall have the honour of my uncle’s august company.”
And so, two days later, the honour was mine. For a memorable half hour I had Mr. Alkamush all to myself.
“A great occasion in my life, sir”, I began. “Education, you know, is my chief concern, and I am sure I have a lot to learn----.
“From me!”
“Yes, sir, and who could guide me better than an educationist of your caliber?”
A burst of laughter from the great man took me quite unawares, I admit.
“Well, by the ghost of Orison Hyde, whoever he was”, continued Mr. Alkamush, “this is the best joke I’ve ever heard. I tell you anything about education! Ha, ha, ha! Why, man, you might as well apply to the grocer across the street.”
A mark of the greatness, this self-depreciation, I assured myself and said so.
“You mistake me, child”, protested Mr. Alkamush, “but not without reason; I can see. Anyway, you must believe me when I tell you it was not my knowledge of education that put me in my present office. It was just seniority, I assure you, and nothing else. I am, as luck would have it, the oldest retired officer of the Education Department living.”
“But, excuse me, sir, you are known as Professor Alkamush, which means you have, to your credit, a long and varied experience in the field of teaching.”
“Nothing of the sort, Mr.---.”
“Malik”
“Thank you, my experience---long, though not varied --- has been of quite another sort. Some fifty years ago I entered the Education Department as a lecturer. Only six months later I was posted as Assistant Director of Education, and I kept moving on till, thirty-five years later, I retired as Additional Secretary. And all this long while I had nothing to do but sign letters of appointment, transfer and promotion, and all the other balderdash that came my way. That, you see, was all I had to do with education throughout the length of my service.”
“Then how, I wonder, sir, did you manage to compile that report which, they tell me, is the last word on the theory and practice of education?”
“Yes, an impressive affair, that report. At least length-wise it is impressive. Full five hundred and thirty pages of a venerable jargon. And it came to us all cut and dried. In our desperate search for guidelines one of my colleagues stumbled into Professor Slug’s book Suggestions for improvement of Education in Developing Countries. And then it was all plain-sailing. We had the work translated into our own language. To make it look more original and relevant to things down here we added twenty pages of specific recommendations.”
“Yes, some of the measures we proposed are likely to give rise to pretty heated discussion for some time. But that is quite natural, you see. People never like things to change, even for the better. And, ironically enough, they are most vocal about things that are least their business.”
“You mistake me sir,” said I,”I did not mean to say people were critical of your report. On the contrary, they are all praise for the revolutionary measures recommended by the commission. By the way, would you tell me details of one or two of your recommendations?”
“Most gladly, Mr. Malik. One of the highlights of our recommendations is the one pertaining to Grade 19 for lecturers.”
“Grade 19 for lecturers! But why, sir?”
“Because my son-in-law’s one.”
Alas! The arrival of few intimate friends of Mr. Alkamush broke up the interview a bit to soon. And I was again pitying Alkamunia and eulogising Pakistan where education is too well managed to need any professor Alkamush to suggest measures for its improvements.


Things look gloomy


A row with your Editor is sure to land you in a ditch.
Natsikapia is the ditch in my case in consequence of a row with the Editor of daily Combat.
The rusty old Editor (bless his rotten soul) said Natsikapia was the rottenest place he could think of.
It is, indeed, the rottenest place anybody could think of.
It did not take me long to realize that Natsikapia is just the reverse of Pakistan in every sense of the word ‘reverse’. Unlike our Pakistanis, the Natsikapians are selfish, corrupt and bitterly unpatriotic. Their leaders, too, are fiends of the lowest order in comparison with ours who are angels lacking only wings. Politically, therefore, Natsikapia is a steaming cauldron of conflicting interests.
The most newsworthy development in Natsikapia is an ideological tug of war between the Federal Government and one of the Provincial Governments. Every morning the newspapers are bursting with spicy stuff like.
Federal Government ought to mind its own business--- A provincial Minister--- Provinces ought to know their limits--- A Federal Minister--- The Centre shall rue its attitude--- A Provincial Minister--- Dissenting provinces shall suffer for their obstinacy--- A Federal Minister
Then there are interesting altercations in the form of two column quips:
“We’ll ameliorate the lot of the masses”, says one of the Federal Ministers.
“We’ll hang them”, retorts one of the Provincial Ministers. (The pronoun “them”, of course, refers to the Federal Government).
“Welfare of the people our first preference”, says one of the Provincial Ministers.
“We’ll blast them”, rejoins a Federal Ministers.
And so on, and so forth, the battle of wits goes on. The Federal Government appoints an officer to a key post. The Provincial Government suspends him and appoints another officer in his place. The Federal Government sacks him. The Provincial Government then re-employs him as an OSD in the same pay scale.
The people read the newspapers, raising their eyebrows, groaning and cursing the belligerents vehemently. Some of them just sigh and go about their business. Others start discussing the chances of this or that happening or not happening.
This morning I had an opportunity to talk things over with an officer of the Public Relations Department. He was standing near the big letter box outside the G.P.O., reading a newspaper and making faces that roused my interest.
“Things don’t seem to be going hunky-dory”, I said with an apologetic cough, looking at the newspaper over his shoulder.
“Hell”! he ejaculated with a start, and turned round to look at the source of this abrupt interruption. Satisfied by my appearance that I was a foreigner, he immediately started pouring his heart out to me:
“Things are crumbling to pieces, my friend”, he said with a heart-rending sigh. “Take my own Department for instance. It belongs to the Centre, you know. Now the Provincial Government, taking exception to some of our recent announcements, has given us notice to vacate all residential and office accommodation occupied by us in the province. The Federal Government, when apprised of the situation, said they had no funds to make alternative arrangements. It means they expect us to live and work on the footpath. Very inconvenient of course, but there is no alternative, you see,” he concluded with a bitter laugh, gave the letter box a resounding thump and walked away nursing his injured hand.
The waiter at my lunch table looked unusually preoccupied. There was something lacking in his affectionate motherly regard for me. He didn’t, for instance, insist on my taking more of the food and less of the salad. I was perplexed. Planning a cautions course of questioning I proceeded:
“Is your boss in?”
“Yes, sir”, he said briefly.
“May I see him?”
“I’m afraid you can’t, sir. He’s raving like hell.
“Raving! The good old proprietor! Sounds serious”.
“It is serious, sir. He’s closing down. Says he can’t run the establishment”.
“So that’s --- well, I think I should try to talk him out of it.”
Leaving the waiter gloomily cleaning the table, I walked across the hall to the door marked ‘Proprietor’.
Heaven knows why, but the little old man has taken a liking to me, so I saw nothing wrong with my butting in without a warning.
“Mr. Malik,” he said forcing a melancholy smile, “Most welcome, sir. Particularly at this moment. Hang!”
“You don’t look well, sir” said I cautiously. “Overwork and all that, of course. But what’s this I hear about your closing down? I think….”
“So you know. Well, that’s it exactly. I am going to close down. What else can I  do, sir under the circumstances?”
“The circumstances!”
“Yes, the circumstances, drat them. I think you know what I mean; the dratted exchange of blows between the Centre and the Province.”
“Of course, I know all that. But what has that to do with your hotel?”
“A precious lot, my son. How could you run a hotel when the Centre cuts off your electric supply and the Province stops the water supply, not for any fault on your part, but in trying to fix up each other?”
Finding myself unable to say anything I just sighed, nodded sympathetically, shook hands with the puzzled old man and left the room.
Are we not lucky, dear Pakistanis, to have perfect peace, harmony and goodwill all around?
Oh, to be in Pakistan
Now that democracy is there!


Carry on Dido!

“You’re a newsman, Hido?”
“Sort of”.
“And on good terms with your News Editor?”
“That badger! I wish I could donate him to a zoo?”
“Anybody in the newsroom you wouldn’t like to donate to a zoo?”
“Well, yes. There’s Aslam, and Khalid, and Shariq.”
“Just one would do. It’s not much. Just killing a tiny news story.”
“Killing a news item! Sounds thick. Let’s see what sort of news it is, anyway.”
“A nasty bit of news, to be sure. A resolution passed by the Municipal Corporation demanding immediate action against my boss.”
“Impossible, sweetie, killing it, I mean. We can’t kill official despatches. And, to make matters worse, the Mayor happens to be a cousin to the badger, So, you see. . . .”
“I don’t, and I won’t until I get that resolution withheld. You just pin me onto one of your cronies in the newsroom and I’ll see what I can do.”
I couldn’t refuse. Dido had promised to get me interviewed for the television and I was not eager to let the opportunity slip through my fingers. So I accompanied him to the newsroom and introduced him to Shariq.
Dido wasted no time in coming to the point. “Would you please let me see that M.C. resolution you received today?” he begged very politely.
Shariq pulled the document out of a tray and handed it to him.
Like a shot, Dido zoomed out of the room into the street and out of sight.
Shariq was stunned with amazement but I was stung with shame and annoyance. Like a second shot I blew out of the room and into the street but missed Dido just as a second shot would miss a first shot.
It took me full two hours of frantic nosing about to learn that the pursuit was a failure. In the meantime, as my footwork had brought me back to the office, I stumbled into the newsroom, crestfallen, tail-between-legs and stopped guiltily before Shariq’s desk.
It was my turn to be stunned with amazement, because Shariq looked happier than I had ever seen him.
“You look worried, child,” he chirped blithely.” Wonder what makes you look like something the cat had brought in. Cheer up, joy, for luck smiles on us two. We’ve had the nearest miss we ever had. Only five minutes ago the badger rang me up and bawled ‘kill that dratted resolution instantly’. I told him --- not too awkwardly I hope --- that a messenger from the Mayor had already reclaimed it.”
“Dido’s machination, to be sure,” I thought, and said so. “Only he could make such miracles happen. But this one surely beats anything. I felt I must, however, find out how he carried it out before I start smothering him with compliments.”
And luckily, I happened to stamp on his tail just as he was creeping into a café not far away. His explanation was hard to swallow but delicious.
“It was all so simple, Hido,” he said with that affectionate smile of an indulgent father explaining something knotty to a none-too-bright son. “Only two days ago, during one of my usual prowls in the Pak Tea House, my pocket cassette-recorder happened to catch something your News Editor would never like to be made public. He was sitting at the table to my right telling a couple of pals what he thought of the Chief Editor.”
“So you had the badger right under your thumb all the time you were cruising round corners like a thief with a cop at his heels. A bit odd, wasn’t it?”
“Not at all. I just couldn’t remember where the hell I’d dumped that cassette. It occurred to me only as I bumped into that dratted letter-box on the pavement before the GPO. I rushed straight back home, recovered the cassette, fitted it to the cassette player, rang up the News Editor, and held the receiver to the cassette player’s mike blaring away full blast. ‘Who the devil is that, playing that infernal trick?’ demanded the News ed. ‘Never mind the who, sir, I retorted. ‘Just get that M.C. resolution killed this instant and you will get the cassette tomorrow.’ ‘O.K. Blast you! I’ll do it. . . .’ And he sounded very busy dialling somebody in the newsroom.”
“And so you you’re going to give him the cassette tomorrow?”
“Only a duplicate, honey. I’ll keep the original just in case,” said Dido with that triumphant leer of a born blackmailer and went out.


Of law and order---and disorder


“I know the law but I obey my orders. That’s my idea of law and order if it please you,” said the Sub-Inspector in charge of a Bajnupia police station in answer to my question regarding the law-and-order situation in Bajnupia.
“Of course,” said I, regretting my choice of a cop for my inquiries. “But I mean the law-and-order situation in the province; all these killings, I mean, and looting and larceny and everything. A day hardly goes by without….”
“None of our business, my dear sir,” said the S.I. curtly. “If there’s anybody to blame, it’s none other than the persons concerned; the killers and the killed, I should say. Where do we honest old cops come in?”
“But excuse me, officer,” I cut in,” are you not supposed to keep law and order?”
“I think I’ve told you what I know of law and order, haven’t I? As for preventing crimes, you can’t suppose us to be present everywhere. Blast me if you can! Now, must we be on the spot in, say, a dark little room in Garhi Shahu, where a mad man is going to hang himself? Of course, we can be there if the silly old ass invites us to grace the occasion with our presence. But he never will, will he? Nor will a gang of bankbusters ring us up to please come and lend a hand with the cleaning up for a certain percentage of the loot? Much less would a bus driver like to have us around as he rams his bus into a car. So where’s your law and order and all that rubbish they are raking up in the newspapers?”
“I appreciate your way of not taking things too seriously, officer. That’s the right spirit, under the circumstances, I assure you. Reminds me of something, somebody said somewhere: For every evil under the sun. There’s a remedy or there is none. If there is one, try to find it/if there is none, never mind it!”
“Of course you can’t stop people from committing crimes. So why should you be bothering about it? But are you not --- isn’t it your duty to track down the culprits?”
“Track down the culprits! As well track down my grandfather’s soul in Heaven or wherever it is! What do you take us for, man? Jins, or Scotland Yard, or something equally supernatural? We are honest old cops, mon ami, if you know what that means. Track down the culprits, really! As if they are dying for us to track them down, calling out to everybody who passed by ‘Hey, tell the cops to please come and arrest us.’                                                                 Now, don’t laugh, sir. I am as serious as Hell. Culprits, let me tell you, are no fools. They see to it that we never get hold of them, and if, with any luck, we do stumble upon them, there is always somebody up at the helm to get them out of our clutches. So you see. . . .”
“I do. Well, leaving the culprits alone for the moment, you told me you obey your orders. I wonder what those orders are, if not . . .”
“No, sir, you couldn’t imagine what they are. Mostly we have to arrange transport and audience for the public meetings addressed by the Chief Minister. God, how they kick! The audience, I mean. I simply can’t tell you the right things they say about us and our nearest relatives of the other sex. But the worst part of our duties is the procedure known as levelling up of a furious mob. Unfortunately, there are too many furious mobs around these days. And they get madder the moment they catch sight of us. I, for one, have had many a close shave --- closer than anything you could imagine. Things are getting impossible, damned impossible, I should say.”
How unlike Pakistan, dear readers, where everything is possible --- just anything any moment!


Some one to look after

“Hold it fast, there. Ouch! There is goes, hang it,” groaned uncle Toosi.
It, hang it or not, in the present sense meant a brand new refrigerator which, in the process of toppling, had occasioned this agonised Ouch because uncle Toosi’s left shoulder happened to stand in its way.
Uncle Toosi, since his retirement from the university, was bent on the becoming a handy member of the household. In vain had auntie Zeba tried to talk him out of it, highlighting disasters sometimes caused by acts of sheer goodwill. She had tried even tears. But fluids of any description could not damage the solid, insoluble determination of uncle Toosi. So he continued to play the leading role in the series of catastrophes which resulted in piles of smashed crockery and wrecked furniture.
Auntie Zeba’s protests gradually subsided into smart asides accompanied occasionally with a sneer or two, but never failing to bring a smile to the lips of the audience.
“It’s the last I’ll ever see of this precious tea set”, she would sign with reluctant resignation whenever she saw uncle Toosi heading for the kitchen with a tray of crockery. And her prophecies always came true. “What on earth has put the idea into the head”, she would sometimes wonder aloud. “Forty years with books and boys have reduced him to a brute. No feeling, no remorse, nothing which becomes a man of any dignity. What fun, I wonder, is there in playing a clumsy housemaid; clumsier, I should say, than the hussy we hired in Islamabad. She had at least one soft corner to her heart. That was why she almost cried her eyes out every time she broke something.”
But comparisons would not make up for ruined furniture and crockery. Something, she felt, have to be done to save what was left. And so she wrote to Jamil, her eldest son, an engineer in Karachi.
Dear Jimmy,
Could you. In Heaven’s name, take your Dad off my hands?
                                                          Yours with love,
                                                                         Mom.
The letter baffled Jimmy, but so did everything his mother said. He, however knew that she always meant well. So he wrote back.
Dear Mom,
Would you, please, request Dad to spend a few days with us? We all miss him so much.
                                                          Yours,
                                                          Jimmy.
Experience had taught auntie Zeba never to address uncle Toosi with a direct request. She just placed the letter before him and waited till he looked up and demanded absently, “What’s this?”
“Why, a letter from Jimmy, dear, don’t you see? The naughty kid wants to have you with him at Karachi. But I don’t think you’d like to leave me alone, would you? Now…………”
“I’ll leave for Karachi tomorrow”, said uncle Toosi curtly, secretly pleased at the preference he hand, for the first time, received from his son. The curtness did not break auntie Zeba’s heart.
The next morning uncle Toosi left for Karachi.
A week later, Jimmy rang up his mother.
“Sad news, Mom,” he gasped, “Dad’s had an accident. Not too bad, thank Goodness, though he has lost both his legs. It happened this morning. He had been insisting on driving the kids to the school, and this morning I was obliged to allow him to do so. On his way back he rammed into a truck. You may be angry with me, Mom, but I had to let him have way because he threatened to leave back for Lahore if I didn’t.”
“I don’t blame you kid”, said auntie Zeba tearfully. “It’s all right. A sad occurrence, no doubt. But it was about just what I wished to happen. I wanted to look after him, Jimmy, but he wouldn’t allow me. You know how badly I have needed someone to look after since your kids grew up and didn’t need me any more. Bring him back to me, Jimmy, as soon as you can. He needs to be looked after, poor soul. I’ll ……….”

More about English

DEPLORACLE lack of initiative and originality has been one of our greatest misfortunes in the field of education. We import a theory, implement it, make a mess of things, leave it at that---- and then rush abroad to get hold of another theory only to repeat the unhappy experience.
And so our monkeying with various theories of teaching and learning English has done more harm than good.
The first and most devastating blow came in the late 1950s with the decision to set one whole paper for Middle and Secondary Stage examinations out of the prescribed text books. As a result, a student could easily get pass marks in English Paper ‘A’ without writing a single word of English. This focused the stress on translation, ignoring whatever else the textbooks were meant to teach. The teacher would read out each sentence of a passage, translate it into Urdu, repeat the reading and the translation, and then pass on to the next sentence. The students memorized the translation sentence for sentence ---- and that was all for a pass in Paper ‘A’.
Later the credit for translation at Secondary Stage was brought down to 15 marks, and at middle stage to 25 marks, but the stress on translation never relaxed.
As for questions on comprehension, the keys, guides and test-papers have always seen to that part of the job. Our students find memorizing the answers easier than puzzling over sentence-structures and things.
With due regards for expectations, our early text-book writers, apparently themselves at sea, did well to avoid offering any material for practice in sentence-structure. Most of the textbooks contain poorly devised exercises in formal grammar conversion of active into passive voice, filling up sundry blanks with words from a given list, and odd bits of vocabulary. Here and there a substitution table was thrown in to give the prescription a modern look.
The current textbooks for Middle and Secondary stages make an honest attempt at teaching something of patterns and structures. But alas! how few of our teachers care to teach these books as they should be.
A recently introduced book of test items for Secondary stage Examination attempts to teach English through the multiple choice approach. One wishes the learned compilers had done something more helpful because multiple choice is unfortunately neither he only nor the best approach to teaching a language. It rather robs the students of opportunities to make their own sentences. Just ticking off the right word or sentence makes pretty poor addition to one’s knowledge of a language. It looks too much like doing crossword puzzles. English-speaking nations could well afford such idle games because they already know the language. We in Pakistan have rather to learn what a question means than rush in with the right answer.
Since 40 % of the questions in Secondary Stage Examination would come from this new book, the teacher and the taught would devote almost half their time to ticking away the experiences given therein. The other half would, no doubt, go into translating the textbooks into Urdu. Where actual teaching of English would wedge in beats imagination.
Most of our students who fail in English do possess the requisite vocabulary and ideas to make an essay, letter or summary of a lesson. What they sadly lack is the ability to marshal the vocabulary and the ideas into making correct sentences. Therefore any textbook or help-book which does not encourage and enable them to make their own sentences is just useless. The objective approach is all very well within certain limits; but in language teaching and learning, the limits, unfortunately, are too narrow.
At college level, the students have to plod through three to four textbooks. Our theory of teaching English at this level is based on the generous assumption that our students have already acquired enough proficiency to express themselves freely in correct English. Therefore, the exercises on reading-material are exclusively in the form of questions about situations, events and ideas. So here too the gap between the student’s ability to express himself and the requirements of the examination is filled up by help-books.
Grim though the situation looks, the picture is honest. I might have spluttered out some bitter truths but I have all along meant well. My 25 years of teaching English to school and college students ought to the regarded as an excuse for a little grandfatherly fuming which, mind you, is not always without meaning.


Tomorrow is here


As a poet Akhtar Husain Jafari already stands alone. Nut he has also much else to his credit. His chief concern these days is to enrich Urdu literature with the latest in taste and trend by keeping up a regular supply of versions and translations of masterpieces from all over the globe.
For that purpose, he chooses only the best among writers and translators. An exacting job, no doubt, but Akhtar Husain Jafari is exactly the man for such challenges.
The volume under review is a very selective anthology of translations as well as first-rate pieces of indigenous fiction, verse and criticism of recent vintage. The underlying idea is to illustrate contemporareity. The volume does it very well.
Four of the contributors are celebrated all-rounders. Ahmad Nadem Qasmi, the living classic, has contributing a searching study of Majeed Amjad, a poet safety comparable with any of his contemporaries abroad. Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi’s discussion of the poet makes it sufficiently clear that Majeed Amjad was nothing of the pessimist he is generally made out to be.
Although Muhammad Saleem-ur-Rehman, poet, story writer, critic and translator is not a prolific writer, his contribution to the anthology makes quite a chunk --- a short story, an appreciation of Virginia Woolf and 10 poems. Hats off to Akhtar Husain Jafari for having got so much out of him! Keep it up, Jafari, and the history of literature will not let your pains go unrewarded.
The story Sagar our Seerhian is an exquisite piece of fiction. Grim images keep failing together with natural ease to build up a suffocating gloom.
Evening, darkness and sleep keep coming up as recurrent images in his 10 poems included in the anthology. Apt images to make up an idea of the nightmarish life we are condemned to live no doubt.
From Asad Muhammad Khan come Malfoozat-i-Bhapota, a piece of tickling humour with a well aimed sting to it, a short but comprehensive note on the poetry of Sadeshwar Diyal Saksaina, and some of his poems translated into Urdu. These last merit special note for excellence of rendering.
In spite of what I think of Pablo Neruda; Muzaffar Iqbal’s discussion of his life and work interests me. The Urdu rendering of his poems, however, leaves quite a bit to be desired.
It is in his study of Abdullah Husain that we get a glimpse of Muzaffar Iqbal’s true genius. That is the line he had better devote his efforts to.
Muhammad Irshad’s rich dissertation on Bertrand Russell gives immense satisfaction. Readers would be waiting eagerly for Muhammad Irshad’s next.
The story by Anwar Sajjad, poems by Saqi Farooqi, Akhtar Husain Jafari, AMjad Aslam Amjad and Asghar Nedeem Syed, ghazals by perveen Shakir and Ansar Ali Ansar, and translations by Javed Shaheen and Munnoo Bhai are things too good to be disposed of in a bundle, but as the limited space available to me does not allow a detailed discussion of each. I trust readers of taste will relish them all the same.










Bless your stars!


Sagittarius (The Archer) 22nd Nov-21st Dec.

HALF A MAN, Half a horse, your star-sign looks something impossible. And that accounts for the said abundance of impossibilities in your life. Not just that, you are the type they call impossible guys. Your wife and kids know this better than anybody else. That is why they never consult you in matters of social importance.
In keeping with your star-sign your character is an interesting combination of the cardinal virtues of a man and a horse. Try to get the man in you on the back of the horse in you and everything will be right.
Getting straight to the point is not always the best policy, particularly when you have dad to deal with. Be roundabout. A confused dad is much easier to handle than a dad on the alert.
Somebody advised you to keep your ears open. Now that did not imply that you should shut your eyes. Ears, you ought to know, are good as a substitute for eyes.
Rest restores your energy, the doctor was right. But don’t go on restoring your energy for the rest of your days. Energy plainly speaking, is of little use in the other world.
Romance is again getting the better of your sense of proportion. Remember the lessons learnt in the past, particularly that stinking affair with---, sorry, it still hurts like hell, doesn’t it?
Mind your interest in politics! Before taking a headlong plunge, see if it is at all necessary. If so, choose your cauldron carefully. Which one is it going to be --- federal, provincial, democratic, or undemocratic?
A new alliance, says your palmist, would be the key to success. Your Begum, we are afraid, would find it hard to agree with the good old palmist. Anyway, we see no harm in your consulting her and even giving her the palmist’s, address if she asks for it.
Try to broaden your horizons if you have any horizons if you have any horizons to speak of. Sagittarius, so far as we know, have none. Financial outlook will remain cloudy for many days to come. Keep within doors as much as you can. Let the kids answer the door with a plain “ Dad isn’t home.”
Market your plans if you can get hold of a customer weak enough in the head to buy them.
Capricorn (The Goat) 21st Dec-20th Jan
Not very pleasant to be referred to as “the goat” eh? But since you were born a goat, you can’t be treated otherwise. So why not put on your best face and be at least a respectable goat?
Being a goat, you can’t escape your suitability for sacrifices of every description. Be, therefore, ready for slaughter at a moment’s notice so that others may celebrate. In the meantime, eat, drink and be as merry as you can.
In search of celebrities sharing your birthday with you, we are hunting around for a history of goats written by a goat. None of the goats we have consulted so far seemed to have heard of a book of that description. An ancient goat owned by a renowned medieval philosopher Akhfash has, however, promised to write one within a week or so. Very encouraging, isn’t it?
Family finances Family finances touching low water mark? Well, what can we do? Your own headache, sonny, if you don’t mind. None of our








































English in our life
Inspite of all the clamour against if English continues to stick around in Pakistan and appears in no haste to leave. About time we realized the folly and futility of our hostility against this handy and, in many cases, indispensable medium of communication.
Let a teacher warn you how your peevish attitude towards English blights the progress of your kids at school. They, following in your own footsteps, regard English as an encumbrance an unjustified imposition and the most difficult part of their studies.
Thus stunted motivation fed with unsavoury textbooks and worked upon by incompetent teaching results in a bitter distaste. Look, for instance, at the fruit picked up at random from what it supposed to be an “essay” written by a student of B.A
MY AIM IN LIFE
Everybody aim in thire life. Nobody can live in the human life without thire aim in life. He is the man not fail in any examination. If you put aim in his life, so you will not feel his problem. I chouse that I worked hard and by leaps and bound.
It is my wish that help the poor. It is also my wish that I am obdent of my parents. It is very strong work for me. I want that I work for my country with a honsty.
And, mind you, the youthful writer of this piece has studied English as a compulsory subject for full nine years. How on earth he managed to steal through his matriculation and intermediate will be discussed in due course. Let us, in the meantime, take a closer look at the other horn of the dilemma, namely, the incessant infiltration of English despite all our kicking.
Trouble, like charity, begins at home. Whatever our, reasons against English, we just cannot do without it. Chuck English out and with it go the names of many of the objects around you. Starting from the start, suppose you are going to build a house. Among the things you must mind come, cement, concrete, plaster chips, tiles, girders (or lintel, if you please) and damp-proofing. Your doors must have bolts and your bath rooms will have pipes, basins, showers.
In case you are lucky enough to inherit or purchase a house, you need not worry about these things but you must use English to name many of the things you need in the house. Furniture, for instance, is a word you cannot escape. Boxes, suitcases, briefcases come next.
Talking about fixtures you cannot ignore writing, switches, plugs, holders, fuses, bulbs, tubelights. And, if you don’t prefer to get into trouble with WAPDA, you must know what meter, unit reading and bills mean.
Your plumbing requirements must be expressed in terms of pipes, sockets, joints, taps valves. Saying just tooti (vernacular for tap) won’t get you anywhere with your plumber.
Gadgets like fridge, freezer, washing machine, juicer, grinder, cooler, heater and pressure cooker save the house wife a lot of time which can be fruitfully employed in the application of toilet-soap, shampoo, hair-oil, cream, powder, puff, lipstick and nailpolish.
Fashions or no fashions, gent’s shirts must have collars, cuffs, buttons. Ties, waistcoats and belts come in with coats and trousers. I dare not go any deeper into affairs of dress though we have quite a few handy English words for the items I must leave alone.
Boots shall be boots and sandals nothing but sandals even if you don’t like polishing with the brush. It goes without saying that life depends on eating. And it too goes without saying that for proper and respectable eating you must have a plate, a jug and a glass handy.
“Halwa-puri” is all right for breakfast but most of us prefer to eat cake, pastry, toast, biscuit, bun or rusk.
Who does not fall ill? And when one does, one must go to a hospital or a clinic and consult a doctor; a surgeon, if it is appendix or something of the sort that needs an operation. God forbid it is cancer or T.B. Not much to bother if it is typhoid or flu. A few injections, pills, capsules and syrups would do to get rid of it. In case the doctor insists on indoor treatment, you have to go to a ward, where nurses are always fitting to and fro, ministering what one patient or another needs. It is safest to address a nurse as sister, but in some cases it does not please. Fort instance, a nurse in her early twenties, never likes an eighty-year-old patient calling her “sister.”
Life is a journey, beyond doubt, and some stretches of this journey have to be made on wheels of some sort. Out of the vast choice of wheels you invariably choose the train if you want comfort, economy and safety all in one. Here, too, you cannot avoid English. Even those who insist on calling the train “garri” must they speak of station, plateform, tickets, guard, whistle, signal, engine, and driver. And, mind you, our trains are usually late. That is why most of us prefer to go by road. Those who cannot afford to buy, borrow or steal a car, jeep or taxi must take a bus or a flying coach. It is through traveling by road that odd bits of driver’s jargon drift into our vocabulary. Steering (wheel), horn, speed, petrol, diesel, are already there. I omit brakes because the word came to us much earlier through the bicycle. And the bicycle alone without handle (bars), pedals, frame, chain, wheels, tyres, tubes, carrier, mudguards, flywheel and axels? The word puncture is also very closely related to the bicycle.
World of TV
The television (T.V) has almost replaced the radio but it is to the latter that we are indebted for the words programme, announcer and drama.the television brought in series and serials as well as dozens of other English words------which are now in the process of assimilation. The cinema has already given us a handy set of terms like film, actor, actress, hero, heroine, villain, producer, director and music director. Movie, star and superstar recent additions to acquaintance with English. So are the cassette and video-games.
The 150 English words noted above from hardly a third of English vocabulary of an average Pakistani. And, mind you, I have picked up only the most familiar words from just a few fields. For instance, I have omitted the words related to aviation. Even from the fields I have touched upon I have selected only words used by the man in the street.
Just a look at these words is enough to convince you that English us not entirely a foreign language in Pakistan, and such not be treated as such.














































PLEASING THE BOSS
Dido looked quite a saint in his collarless white shirt and white crochet cap telling away beads on a glittering little rosary. I was alarmed. Dido, a hardened scoundrel, must have had a shattering jolt, a close call or something, to make him see the need for religion.
“Why, Dido, What’s it been? Said I’ with genuine sympathy. “Suspension and inquiry? A kick from a passing truck or something? What on earth……”
“Nothing of the sort, Hido. It’s only my new boss. You don’t seem to have seem him as yet”.
“Nor do I intend to see him in future. Your bosses excuse me Dido, are never something to look at”.
“But this one’s an exception, Hido. It’ll certainly do you good to look at him. Full grey beard, imposing stature, arresting voice, quite a man! And dead too”.
“Bless my wits no! Your boss dead honest! Don’t kid, Dido, I know what you mean.”
“You don’t silly, I tell you, you don’t. He’s really dead honest, as dead as ever a man was. Talks of nothing but Allah ane the Day of  Judgement. My! What a speech it was he mad on the very day he arrived. ‘my dear colleagues’ says he, ‘I’m not here to boss you about, but to shoulder a grave responsibility. We are all accountable to Allah, you know. Let us, therefore, work exactly as He likes us to do. No negligence, no irregularity, no dishonesty. This in a nutshell, is the right way to work. And my foremost duty here is to see that you all work the right way. And, of course, to set those right who go wrong. But I hope you won’t go wrong. You are all good muslims, I believe, so I need not tell you what to do and what to avoid”. And the next day he suspended a clerk for having a fiver from a client. The client’s fault , now I come to think of it, for he ought not to have thrust that fiver on the poor unlucky boy.”
“Terrible, no doubt. But who the D---played the informer?”
“it was I, Hido, and I am thoroughly sorry for it. But I just couldn’t resist the urge to please the boss, you know”
“Yes,Hido, honest to God, that it was, I just couldn’t miss an opportunity to please the boss, whatever it might cost me in the long run”
“So that’s it. This other-worldly appearance, I mean. Just another attempt to please the boss, eh?”
“Yes, it is, strictly between you and me. And it works, Hido, you can’t imagine how wonderfully. It has already made a sort of favourite with the boss ‘Dido’, he often says, ‘you’ve the makings of a saint in you. You’re one of the most devout and diligent Muslims I ever saw’……”
“Enough of that.” I could stand it no longer. “ Just tell  me how long is this devoutness and diligence going to last?”
“ Now don’t pretend you don’t know Hido, for you know,” protested Dido with a wicked smile.
Of course I knew. The wicked smile, however, confirmed it.