Satire: Diary of a PMLN Spokesperson

Dear Diary ...

Working for the PMLN as their spokesperson is so incredibly rewarding, it’s as if I have found my dream job at Enron or Exxon. Do good and do it well, I always say.

Every day I wake up and eagerly start my day to serve the nation. Pakistan needs nothing more than strong institutions to develop. And there is no stronger institution than Mohtarma Maryam Nawaz Sharif.

My plate is so full. Chapli kebabs and naans take up most of the space. But yes, I have a lot to do as well. And who wouldn’t if you are non-stop developing Pakistan. We will leave no old tree unturned to get us into the future. We must raze down history to make way for a new history, created by Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and Mian Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif.

We wake up in the morning and read the papers; by lunchtime we are using them as wrapping paper to keep the naans warm. We usually rush to the Supreme Court to get the latest gossip from the peons on where the Panama case will go. They know more than our lawyers. We also take this opportunity to sing paeans of the boss to the peons. Then we get to Maryam Nawaz's place so she can tell us how to do our jobs. We quickly alert the press that, no, the royal family is not escaping the country. By night-time we are on a news show, shouting down the other guy. And every minute of downtime is used in responding to whatever that sore loser fantasist has said on the day.

I have to keep the nation updated on all the flyovers we are building, and the bypasses we are getting. As one must when their supreme leader looks like Justin Trudeau, acts like Winston Churchill and thinks like Lee Kuan Yew.

Look, when we bought the flats in Mayfair, they weren’t as expensive as they are in Monopoly. You know, the woman who created the game Monopoly did so to teach young kids about the evils of capitalism and its heartlessness. But we weren’t convinced as children; it made us want to have those flats. Hey, it’s better than our main opposition leader getting one in OldKent — standards, like I said earlier, standards. When they go low, we go high and get the B-Team to descend to the gutter against them.

And it’s just so tiring being the only adult in the country — the PTI has no adults, even though they use a lot of adult language. Plus our lawyers have told us not to stoop to their level when they grandstand.

They are always asking us about our properties and how the money went here and there. How would we know, we weren’t there. And neither does Maryam, the PM, his sons or the in-laws. We know nada, all was done by Dada.

On social media, we take our cues from Maryam Nawaz. We tried getting her father on Twitter, but he said it was beneath him to use a Tweezer in public. We then tried to convince him to use Facebook, but he disliked the thought of getting poked because he is so ticklish. He said he would have tried MS DOS, but she remarried recently.

Managing the media is our job. But it’s so difficult when the journalists are so unprofessional in this country — not all of them will accept plum jobs in government departments. It’s like they want to be servants of the Seth their whole lives.

After our novelisations in the National Assembly failed, we had to become lawyers as well. Spinning a good yarn was always our specialty, but this one is proving expensive. Where do we go? Telling the truth got us Dawn Leaks — and keeping shut is against our DNA. Any opportunity for a good jugat is our kryptonite.

Maryam's obediently,

PMLN Spokesperson

This was originally published in the Herald's April 2017 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.