It’s the 5 o’ clock news. I am live on air. And there is a fly on my nose. This is no ordinary fly. It is a highly evolved, shrewdly tenacious, attack resistant Karachi fly. I am on one of those unexpected live callers, very common in Pakistani TV newsrooms.

You know those on-air phone calls when the newsroom gets the first inkling of news somewhere and dials a number for anyone – supposedly an expert of course – who can say anything about the potentially developing report. The anchor skirts around the questioning, conducting conversational experiments to trace the hint of a story. The producer listens carefully for keywords, any words, to make visual connections and slap on even remotely relevant loops of images.

Alas, the producer has no video to cut away from this engorged entity stuck to my face. Contrary to its name, the fly seems quite content perched on its chosen landing spot. So we must brace ourselves and, like most disasters that hit the newsroom, wait for the crisis to pass.

Crisis is a usual state of existence inside Pakistan’s developing television newsrooms. With many hours to fill with news and analysis, and not enough staff and resources to plan for them, there are many instances of jerky presentation and numerous occasions of flawed journalism. Anchors regularly go on air without scripts and/or information and producers often run bulletins at a whim shaped by what is available or possible.

To make it work in such an environment you have to rely heavily on troubleshooting, or the less eloquent colloquial term, jugaar. Then there was that time when we were about to go on air in 10 seconds and no one had noticed the make-up artist still dallying in the studio. As the producer’s countdown began in my ear, I had to push the stylist down behind my chair. And as I stoically read the news headlines for the hour, there was a person crouched silently under my desk until it was time to go off-air for a break.

Still minutes away from a break this time, I slowly take my hand to my face, as if to brush away a strand of hair. No luck. My mind begins to wander into panic. It’s hard enough sitting straight because, well, there is a fly on my nose. But I must also appear intelligent and genuinely interested in what the person on the phone is ranting about. And just like you start sinking when you think about drowning, when a news anchor begins to focus on how ludicrous the scene must appear that’s when she might lose her composure. And probably end up on YouTube or its unbanned equivalents.

I try to control my reflex to go into a Taekwondo-type swipe to get rid of this menace. An uncontrollable urge within me wants to just give up and laugh. Surely, the viewers can see how ridiculous this is and we can all shrug and laugh it off together. Surely we can agree that there is a limit to what news anchors can bear tolerably.

Like the time when, right in the middle of a news bulletin, one of the studio lights exploded. I was lucky that day because nothing caught on fire. With another anchor, bits of burnt paper, some still smoldering, rained down from the sky as he calmly continued reading the news.

I must maintain the tradition of calm perfection and power throughout. I try slowly moving my face, downwards, and to the side. Hoping the movement will dislodge the buzzer. But the fly is adamant. It wants its 15 seconds of fame right now. On my face. How faithfully parasitic.

And so, the fly, the unforgettably forgettable politician, and I finish the beeper together. I get off the studio chair like a soldier in battle, triumphant yet broken, to be greeted likewise by my news director and colleagues. All in a day’s work for a news anchor. Did I go in again the next morning? Absolutely, with adrenalin.