LET’S get the linguistic grouse out of the way first. As if our insistence on interspersing everyday dialogue and tirades with English were not enough, we also corrupt it with strange verbs. Air travellers can easily announce, ‘we have landed’ in Urdu in as few words, but we somehow don’t feel the rubber meeting the tarmac till we scream into phones, ‘hum land kar gaey hein’. Similarly, the obvious could have been stated as the ‘system has collapsed’, but it had to be ‘system collapse kar gaya hai’.

It is interesting that not a single soul takes issue with the prognosis; it’s just that the town crier is seen not only as representing the very system whose funeral he announced but also as an accomplice in that system’s demise. One is reminded of Ameer Minai’s couplet: “Allah re saadgi nahin itni unhein khabar/ Mayyat pe aa ke poochte hein in ko kya hua.” (‘Oh God! What feigned innocence/ Wondering what ails the corpse’). To his credit, though, following in the footsteps of Ghalib, the bearer of the bad news has since dropped any pretence of independent thought and action. He did not announce, like the bard: “Gone are the days of proclaiming, I ain’t no employee.”........

© Dawn