The Grapevine April 2014

Well, there are leagues within the League, it appears. Two groups seems to have emerged within the inner coterie. One, is the likes of Khwaja Asif, Ishaq Dar, Pervez Rashid etc. All of them are heavy hitters. On the other side is interior minister Chaudhry Nisar. Now, though it might not seem to be an even fight, Nisar’s odds are made better by the fact that the Punjab chief minister has his back. Insider reports say that this particular tug-of-war is getting more intense by the day. Let’s see till when things fall apart.

Being made the coordinator of the committee to talk to the Taliban was too much for Irfan Siddiqui to stomach, literally. A doctor friend of his went over to see him and Siddqui is said to have told him he was sick with “diarrhea due to depression.” Yes, those who have been informed of the full calculus of the positive framework of the state versus the militants have all been given to severe bouts of depression. And fear is a known cause of people emptying their bowels, so…

Muhammad Malick has tried to style himself as a liberal pundit since some time now but his tenure as the PTV boss has coincided with exclusive and special coverage of ASWJ chief Ahmed Ludhianvi. Sources claim, Malick has an old friendship with the now renamed SSP since the early days of his career, when he is said to have tipped of the late Maulana Azam Tariq about political and other developments in the offing.

Every dog has his day – especially if it belongs to the scion of the country’s (largest?) political party. Recently, Bilawal Bhutto had called his Punjab leaders over for talks in Dubai. Fawad Chaudhry, Nadeem Afzal Chan, Faisal Karim Kundi, Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar etc. During a meeting, Sharmila Farooqi entered the room and hugged Bilawal’s pet dog. Seeing this, Fawad Chaudhry quipped, “Saeen toh saeen, Saeen ka kutta bhi saeen!” “Without a doubt,” Sharmila unabashedly quipped.