Hamid Mir and those we do not speak of
Hamid Mir has named Those We Do Not Speak Of, or speak of only in utmost reverence because they are the givers of life and the takers of it. We breathe our first and we breathe our last by their leave. We keep on the straight path of patriotism and are rewarded by being spared the wrath of the titans. We stray from the true path fixed for us mortals and the godly shepherd knows how to haul us back to the herd of the faithful.
Good Heavens! No. The intention was not to say that Those We Do Not Speak Of kill good people. Let this be explained:
They give us life by making it possible — by protecting us from the evil that resides in the souls of men. Hamid Mir, having sold himself to the enemy, asks questions clearly designed to shake the foundation of our faith. The enemy, we know, is all around us. So Those We Do Not Speak Of have to be all around us and be about their business of giving us life. This is a delicate business. People can go missing. People can turn up dead. This is no talk show. And Hamid Mir has been deliberately missing this point for a while now.
Hamid Mir sows doubt and reaps sin, so his guilt-ridden subconscious makes him threat-obsessed. And he spews his venom with such variety before he ‘bites the bullet’ and after he has bitten it. The wild spread of this venom demoralises the givers of life. The shameless naming of Those We Do Not Speak Of makes them lose heart in their war on the enemy. Our first, nay only, line of defence is eroded. Life, thus, has been taken away. By not being able to give life they are now the takers of it. Children had better not be born in a world where Hamid Mir is possible and where Those We Do Not Speak Of are demoralised. Those living already are as good as dead when the dread of the enemy dwells in every doorway.
How can we let this happen to us and our children?
It is said that in the good old days when holy cows grazed unquestioned in all fields fertile, the Brahmins had it all figured. They would seal with melted lead the ears of those who happened to hear sinful talk. Good old days of holy cows and Brahmins.
What do we do now? We can’t be demoralised by this assault from the enemy within — in bed with the enemy without. Come clean, they say? What blasphemy! That’s the dirt that mires the civilian face, or those we Do speak of.
No, we must have vision — the never-dying, never-failing vision: we must see conspiracy. We summon strength, conjure up fear, isolate the enemy, raise a spectre — the threat to the national interest etc. Let all our sirens sing the most beautiful song that can ever be sung: the eternal bad-name-abroad song. Let all our players play patriot games.
What about the song that Hamid Mir is singing in that dark channel of treachery and deception? Here is how we go: we grow hard of hearing. We deny that other, different songs can also be heard in the channel. Melted lead works no more. Too many ears to seal. We throttle with an iron hand the source where the song flows. Hard times indeed when that hand becomes necessary. People are usually patriot enough not to speak of Those We Do Not Speak Of.
But Hamid Mir is cunning. For all his naming of Those We Do Not Speak Of, he shows them and theirs a measure of respect. Says the bullets too taught him that. He does not measure up to our standard of patriotism, nor do those who give him voice. And they are playing patriot with us. Insolent rascals.
Time to weave narratives in the national interest — logical, unassailable narratives. Weavers are already lined up. Weavers of yarn and bearers of grudge. Pettiness serving patriotism is no petty asset. The lamp is rubbed and there appear genies big and small. Genies of jealousy. I too have been talking against them, says one. I too have been tracing the missing, says another. Together they wonder: how come Those We Do Not Speak Of never threatened us? Indeed they did not. A brilliant expose of false icon and true villain Hamid Mir.
But where is the pleasure boy of the patriots? And how can the court buffoon miss the occasion? Hamid is a traitor, the boy screams in pleasure. Hang Hamid, the buffoon squeals in ecstasy. Our boy and our buffoon and their topi-dance. This is pleasure indeed. But base pleasure.
We need beauty. Beautiful things these narratives when they weave themselves voluntarily through the hands of the Solomons of society. What has the world come to?, ask the Solomons with tears in their eyes. Their calm wisdom runs: instead of joining Hamid Mir in a fervent and obedient licking of his wounds, the monkeys of the media are jumping about crying freedom of expression and asking who did it.
Horror of horrors! Despicable monkeys with abominable agendas, counting Hamid’s wounds, have found them fragrant with the smell of Those We Do Not Speak Of. They should have been intelligent enough to feel the reek of the true and terrifying enemy of us all. But monkeys will be monkeys. The paranoia of the wounded and his family has been taken seriously. And there comes — without effort — the most beautiful turn in the narrative: Those We Do Not Speak Of — the indisputable agents of Divinity — cannot botch it up. They never have. Hamid survived. Suspicious survival this.
But the narrative should run deeper — and so it does: at such and such time and such and such hour, the shooting down of a nobody like Hamid Mir makes no strategic sense. How can the media monkeys be so presumptuous as to think that one of them is so important as to be taken out at such and such time and such and such hour? Exactly! From the forgettable missing to the memorable Musharraf, and to the much more important matter of the talks and the terror, what has Hamid Mir done to merit special attention — at such and such time and such and such hour? A very big Nothing — surpassed only by the ego and the arrogance of Hamid and those who see his wounds and count the possibilities.
This is beauty unbeatable. And it brooks no ugliness, no counternarrative. Its objectivity is so sharp and its truth so direct that even the combined intellect of all the media monkeys cannot match it. That’s the strength provided to the brave and beautiful by the blessed order run by Those We Do Not Speak Of. In the vulgar fashion of those godless demons that attacked Divinity in the Europe of yore, the enemy will have to invent indirect, surreptitious ways to go around the Divine Fort. This will weaken the assault on He Who Has No Name and make the enemy apologetic just when he is attacking us. He will have to remember that we are the shadows of God on Earth. We are the priests of patriotism. We are religion. We are God. You do not name the holy of holies — and if you do, you pay dearly for this cowardice.
But be warned, this is just the time when Lucifer might whisper in the ears of the vulnerable. He might ask: have they really done any such thing? Aren’t other, different songs being sung in that channel? The waters there are sufficiently muddied — with all kinds of songs being sung. And the man who lies wounded may not be lying from his bed. What possibility is there of an investigation worth the name if the naming of names endangers the existence of the whole of Eden?
Lucifer’s real design is to tempt us to the Forbidden Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Lucifer is in fact telling you that once you have eaten of the Fruit, your eyes shall be as God’s.
Spurn the devil. Pick up an axe and crush him.
(Note: This is a piece of satire and reflects the personal opinion of the writer.)
The writer is editor oped, The News. Email: [email protected]
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