Yesterday I read a news item in the News ‘ The road to peace is paved with fresh garlic’ It reminds me the book written by Khalid Hassan ‘give us back
our onions’ some years back I think in 1985.In those days there was acute shortage of onions and the writer wasted no time create humor out this situation.
Here is excerpt from that chapter------
FOR SOME ONE LIKE DR.MAHBUBUL HAQ who knows his onions, their sudden disappearance from the country must have come as a great shock .one can only pray this does not cause him to go off his onion because, onions or no onions, the nation need him.
It is true that cotton crop has failed, but that is as it should be Gone are the days when cotton was king. And anyway who needs kings these days. The few who are left, will go the way the onions went, mark my words.
I have been waiting explanation of the onions situation from MR.ELAHI BUX SOOMRO, our distinguished minister of industries, concerning his lucid interpretation of the new ghee prices helped calm the nation’s nerve and gave it-------- okay no ghee—but a great deal of enlightenment at no extra cost.
The other person I had pinned my hopes on was DR.MUBASHAR HASAN.
He too has chosen silence, which makes me wonder if his planning commission still in business. I mean a planning commission which can not tell its onions from it’s marbles deserve to be disbanded.
Nor has the council of Islamic ideology said any thing about the grave situation prevailing in our onionless society. As far as I know, onion do not lie out side the pale of islam. nor is there use prohibited. so why this reticence? If the council is busy deliberating whether political parties are Islamic or otherwise, I would humbly suggest that it devote its scholarly attention instead to more pressing matters—such as onions.
But the man who has my sympathy, is DR. MAHBUBUL HAQ.How could we do to him? Here he comes from triumphant tour of South Korea in stead of rolling out the red carpet for him, we confronted him with the mystifying case of disappeared onions. It is not fair.
How can we expect to renegotiate our loans buy us lollypops, when the whole world know that the country he represents has neither an elected government nor onions—in that order. the first no body in the west minds, but to do business with a country which has no onions, is extremely difficult.even such tested friends as the UNITED STATE would find their generosity being taxed to the breaking point, where Dr Haq to go to Washington with no onions in his pocket.
I was shocked to compare the present situation with that of 1985.Oh my God we are just standing at the same crossroad.