Andher Nagri

Dr. Sarfaraz K Niazi (e-mail: niazi@niazi.com)

In the land of make-belief, there is a kingdom of Andher Nagri where rivers flow upwards, the sun rises in the night, age brings lesser wisdom and its citizens do not recognize each other. More in this land are the lawmen that run a muck, flashing klashnikovs, abducting and looting people. Where the prime minister considers 100 head cuts a month a "normal" situation and runs looking pretty all around the world to find peace at home. Where the Chief Minister requests people to identify the terrorists. Where the President runs billing in millions to attend his son's graduation, where public utilities admittedly skim-off 80% of budget, where people who speak the same language go for each other's gut, where clergy openly preach hatred and proclaim killings of all those who do not conform to their doctrine. Where unanimous public opinion of corruption by the next of kin of the rulers is ignored shamelessly as whimsical; it is in this kingdom that those given to interpret blasphemy laws have never read the Book, where education plans are designed to reduce level of intelligence, where people procreate, like animals, more of their kind than anywhere in the world and where more than 90% of all resources go to fund military operations and debt servicing. This kingdom of feudal lords is a chaopat raj, about which nobody wants to talk about knowing well that the rest of the world has long left it behind including its neighbors. In the grand plan of Almighty, such officialdoms are there to keep the genetically discarded material that is worthless and wrathful. Such is our kingdom, such is our abode, such is our destiny. Long live andher nagri, long live chaopat raj!.

[07 March 1995 The Daily Dawn]