Tales and Tails of Nehr-e-Khayyam - Episode 8
Fazlu is in the air …
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| White-throated kingfisher found at Nehr-e-Khayyam (well, supposedly) |
Nehr-e-Khayyam was overshadowed by the thick smog that
took over most parts of the country like a memory of a deceased loved one still
lingering on because you couldn’t meet them one last time while they were still
living. Breathing in was difficult, yet breathing was inevitable … everyone was
going to die anyway … sooner or later!
The morbidity level of the lines above is as toxic as the
air quality index aggravated by smog … the purple level (yes please Google it!
Thank you).
Moving on, the presence of Nehr-e-Khayyam still made it
all manageable, thanks to the refreshing vibe and an amazing ambiance its
existence brought forth.
“Fazlu is in the air, every newspaper I pick around,
Fazlu is in the air, like the smog toxicity around.
And I don’t know if he’s being foolish,
Don’t know if he’s just being mad,
Don’t know if he’s just being himself …
But it's something that I must believe in,
and it's there when I look at your cross section …” sang Doggo (with apologies
to John Paul young) while staring at the half eaten, stolen naalaito (naala
tomato … oops, canal, you may refer to the last episode to get enlightened
about naalaito).
“Doggo, you silly, silly …
SILLY dog! Have you been fooling around with my precious playlist again?!”
blurted Kuttay, “He cannot be in the air unless he is a helium balloon which he
isn’t … he’s too heavy even for the ground. And that is something that you must
believe in!”
“Well, had he been a balloon, could he have exploded? I think he
will implode one day, that time is near and let’s just hope it’s not a
fissiparous reaction,” said Doggo, “Have you read the news? There is a Fazlu
plan B - Fazloob, he’s coming to our metropolis … But there can never again be
as charming a stunt as either of the ones pulled out by our ‘BHAI’ … oh those
were the days my dear, when all used to live in fear. La, la, la … laaaa.”
As the canal police patrolled the area, they stopped over to check
on the designated area where the dogs were. They had information about stolen
naalaitoes which they acquired through tracking their RFID chips. Both Doggo
and Kuttay had to immediately bury the naalaitoes they had stolen and of course
their naaliato RFIDs had been disabled when stolen, which meant there were more
thieves who were making hoarding difficult.
In other news, Fazlu had earlier decided to block all highways but
the plan went in vain, considering his deprived ‘boyzes’ had decided to play
hide-and-seek and got scattered around.
The weekend magazine, ‘Naala
Leaks’, in a suicidal attempt once again did a cover story titled, “The
chronicles of the establishment and disbandment”. While highlighting Fazlu
(not that any physical space is ever enough for him), the anonymous news
reporter mentioned that he and his little minions had been blocking highways,
thus affecting the revenue generated through the toll tax because of which the
last installment of IMF’s loan was being disrupted. The government had
therefore decided to sign the so called ‘understanding’ with him based on which
he would be allowed to scuba dive in Nehr-e-Khayyam and meet the mermaids there
as a recreational activity… much to the horror of those mermaids – poor,
pretty, pretty innocuous souls. The inside story revealed that he will try his
luck at scuba diving for the first time in his life, have a eureka moment and
drown inevitably while the government took measures to contain Tsunami.
Meanwhile, the ‘established government’ had sent all of the city’s lifeguards
and divers on vacation in Thailand who would have come to save any disrupting
object from drowning … oh well, naturally.
“Kuttay, let’s go to the beach, it’s been long … let’s gather our
species and just go once and for all! It’s been ages,” said Doggo.
“Doggo darling why don’t you understand the simple facts of life?
If you wait to gather your entire contact list, assuming that you will only enjoy
in their company then you are wrong. First of all, the plan will keep on getting
dragged until you decide to give up and secondly you don’t need an entire tribe
to have fun, for you can enjoy even in your own company … your own
self-satisfied, self-actualised existence! You don’t need anyone else to make
yourself realise that, but your own esteemed self,” explained Kuttay.
“Okay, enough of Maslow here. You want me to become a snob … an
introvert?” asked Doggo innocently.
“This is where you’re going wrong, you silly! Introverts and snobs
are not synonymous to each other; sometimes even extroverts can be snobs. Well,
to tell you the truth, the co-relation lies there more often. You need to be
happy with your own self first to be later happy in the company of others. We
are ambiverts as humans … err, even dogs I must say. Here, I want to share with
you what the Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius once said:
‘Men seek retreats for themselves - in the
country, by the sea, in the hills - and you yourself are particularly prone to
this yearning. But all this is quite unphilosophic, when it is open to you, at
any time you want, to retreat into yourself. No retreat offers someone more
quiet and relaxation than that into his own mind, especially if he can dip into
thoughts there which put him at immediate and complete ease ...'"
Author has described this Nehr-E-Khayyam so well that one gets curious to visit this spot. I hope authorities read Sidh Government think like Heba and honestly work on developing this as a leisure spotfor the entertainment starved people of Karachi
ReplyDeleteThank you for your appreciating words as always! The Sindh Government doesn't care though, as unfortunate as our state of affairs is ...
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