Satire: Diary of Chaudhry Nisar
I’ve called this press conference today because my wife said she needed me out of the house for some peace of mind. I’d like to begin by saying that it is a vital role of the media to cover my press conferences. An interior minister is only as good as the news channels that carry him, and only as articulate as the queries posed by your inquisitive minds. You may ask your questions at the end, after I’ve left.
Please wait a minute, I just want to check if my hairpiece is working. I mean earpiece is working.
Tea will be served in a few days, when I pause for breath. I have never been a believer in verbal punctuation and I don’t intend to start now. The last time I called a press conference, two journalists passed out from heat strokes, halfway through. More people get ill during my press conferences than during dengue season.
Speaking of which, we – and by ‘we’ I mean ‘I’ – have reduced terrorism in this country by 98.921 per cent, according to the latest figures I’ve randomly punched on my calculator. Not only is this great news for the public but also for me, I’ve finally learned how to use a calculator.
Kindly refrain from asking me if I have yet discovered the species of animal that has died on my head. Thank you. That joke was old before I was bald, I mean before I was born.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to deny accusations of being insufferably dull and having no personality. It is not true that the last time I laughed was in the 1970s. I have a sense of humour. I did say we’d eradicate load-shedding within a year, didn’t I? My children tell me I remind them of this man on television who does silly things to make people laugh. I bet Rowan Atkinson’s kids say the same thing about me.
Please wait a minute, I think I’ve put my hair on backwards today. It takes me so long just to iron it in the mornings. Here we go.
Now, as I was saying, we must also clamp down hard on NGOs.
All these NGOs are full of spies. They have secret codes like NGO Aunty to signify high-level operatives. For years, they’ve been contaminating our water supply with a chemical called H2O. Save the Children? Whose children? Where did these children come from? Do they have ID cards to prove that they’re Pakistani?
Technically, the TTP is also an NGO. It’s a non-governmental organisation, and it pays no taxes. We must crack down on all such anti-state elements. The rangers are doing a terrific operation in Karachi and it’s also terrific of them to keep letting me say that it’s under my leadership.
Also I’d like to make it clear, and it should be fairly obvious after the NA-122 results, that the 2013 elections were not wigged, I mean rigged. The PTI was wrong.
We are unable to understand the PTI’s politics, we are also unable to understand our own politics, but at least it’s not the politics of confrontation. Unless it’s two PMLN leaders on a television show. We used to fight other parties when we were in the opposition, now we mostly just fight each other.
Just look at Khawaja Asif. I’m surprised how he has so much time to get ready, powder his face and sit in front of cameras every day. I mean, that’s my job. I’m the interior minister. He’s supposed to be counting missiles and megawatts.
As for me, I have never muttered bad words against Khawaja Asif. I always say them out loud. Like when I said I didn’t need to go through the Ministry of Defence to talk to the GHQ. And there’s a good reason for that, when the next martial law is imposed I don’t want to be on the plane to Saudi Arabia.
This party has simply become too big to manage. Mian Sahb doesn’t realise that; he’s calling upon Obama to make peace between India and Pakistan when he should be asking Obama to make peace between Khawaja Asif and me.
Mian Sahb has often ignored me; he even got the initial plan for the motorway wrong; it completely missed my hometown of Chakri somehow. I had to sit with the engineers all day to make corrections. The lack of importance given to me will be the downfall of this regime.
I’m beginning to realise that Pervez Musharraf was a great little man. He once offered to fly to London on economy class, buy a second-hand gun (to save the taxpayers’ money) and end Altaf Hussain’s reign of terror once and for all. He then said he’d give himself up to Scotland Yard and not topple Mian Sahb’s government in 1999.
But Mian Sahb said no. The rest is history.
But governments are like that: hair today, gone tomorrow. I mean here today. One day, PMLN will stand for Pakistan Muslim League–Nisar.
Yours truly, Chori Nisar
This was originally published in Herald's November 2015 issue. To read more, subscribe to Herald in print.