A story is told about a roving British envoy going through Iran in the mid 19nth century. He had brought along a secretary who had a smattering of Persian. And the Shah had attached to this embassy a court official who had some english. This ensured that in the back and forth between them, some exchanges would be understood, but plenty would be lost in translation.
During one of their days about town they beheld the sight of a Moharram procession in which a number of youths were laying about themselves with great gusto.
Shocked, the envoy turned and asked his secretary what that was all about. The secretary, in turn, asked the Iranian protocol official, and then reverted to the envoy: “excellency,” he said, “one of their most highly venerated religious leaders has died.”
” Oh, when did that happen?” asked the envoy.
The secretary again took help of the Iranian official, and informed the ambassador that this had happened some thirteen hundred years ago!
” Damn” exclaimed the envoy, “news does take time to travel in these parts, doesn’t it!”
It has not been quite thirteen hundred years ago that Mian Nawaz Sharif and then Ayaz Sadiq, on the instructions of his political leader, who has absconded after stealing a good deal of our money, did his best to denigrate the Army Chief. He succeeded in his effort so well, that overnight he became a darling of Indian news anchors. Everyone and his aunt in Pakistan saw their performances on TV or YouTube. Everyone, except Lt Gen Qadir Baloch.
But the news at long last caught up with him on 7 Nov. He stepped onto a stage to explain why he was leaving PMLN. He explained at length the services he had rendered to PMLN, and how PMLN had ignored him as well as the “Chief of Jhalawan”, thus “dishonouring the Baloch”. Actually, he used the occasion almost entirely to ingratiate himself with the “Chief of the Jhalawan”. It was so pathetically a case of a commoner sucking up to his ” Sardar”, that the cloying performance could not possibly have been lost on anyone. And then he rounded up his obsequies by declaring that had PMLN come forward with an apology, he could have thought in terms of reconciliation. But what had taken the matter well beyond even entertaining the idea of reconciliation was Nawaz Sharif’s quite open attempt to incite rebellion against the army high command by the lower ranks.
In short, he used the occasion to suck up to the “Chief of Jhalawan”; to restore lost honour of the Baloch; to register belated umbrage at Nawaz Sharif’s attempt to instigate a revolt within the army; and to suck up to the army chief, all in one performance.
It was a virtuoso exercise in sycophancy and moral acrobatics.
This is how a good senior officer makes up for lost time. Remorse is measured by the volume of the bleating, and brings in its wake both redemption and rehabilitation!
Retirements bring with them their own pressures. I had always imagined that of all retirements, that of the harlot was the most pathetic for the sheer expiry date of her wares. But I guess, I now know better now!