Man O man! Get a life, Musharraf and party. Such massive deployment of rangers and the police for a few unarmed civilians...C'mon he's not bringing atom bombs or heavy arms with him that a crowd of avid supporters couldn't handle him. Why subject him to a reception of army and guns all around? and then they say they have nothing to fear from the person of Nawaz Sharif. Then why not let the world see what he actually got...Why are we bent on making heroes out of mere mortals through the kind of treatment that we mete out to them? "Event based heroes, as Talat Hussain put it. Zardari became one because he languished in jail without court proceedings and all for such a long time, Javed Hashmi because he was charged with treason and now the popularity chart of Sharif brothers doesn't seem to be plummeting in the near future despite the Saudi Intelligence Chief's and Saad Hariri's visit, despite it being obvious that Nawaz Sharif left the country willingly, despite there clearly having been a deal-only because he has monopolised the situation and seems to be the only one after the Chief Justice who is standing up to Musharraf. Nawaz Sharif's willingness to go to jails and to face all charges is such a hollow statement in these times...just because now he doesn't foresee a long incarceration, he's telling us that he will do anything for the "national interest" and for the 160 million people of Pakistan- all cliched rhetoric. Why didn't he stay back when he was sentenced to life imprisonment but that was probably too much for the Lahori tiger (the "bheegi billi" type).

But probably, that's the only criteria that we have for heroes. Our poor nation is forced to forgive these politicians evvverytime.

Nawaz Sharif wiill certainly not have his 10 lakh crowd reception. The way his workers are being hounded, we'll be lucky if we get away without another May 12. Call me a harbinger or whatever but we have history to judge the turn of the tides, since we never learn from it we repeat it.

annnd after I had spent the weekend thinking of how to get access to the TV at IST, with all the parents around on mOnday, the annual dinner gets delayed. Relief to my parents and somewhat to me too. It's completely another thing having to share the TV with maximum 4 or 5 people in ur own TV Lounge and a neck straining exercise to watch it in IST...that is if there's the same enthusiasm as there used to be for cricket matches.