India-Pakistan talks can wait: Dial D for disturb

Rarely does a phone call capture a nation’s imagination, but that is precisely what happened on August 22. A call from an Indian television news channel went out to Dawood Ibrahim’s residence in Karachi and managed to distract and derail what should have otherwise been a lazy Saturday afternoon.

We all know how annoying pesky, mid-day phone calls from unknown numbers can be. Dawood, who has been enjoying the famous Pakistani hospitality for 20 years, must finally be rattled now.

All these years, Indian agencies appeared to have exhausted every trick in the trade to smoke out their most-wanted man. But I have always known that the best way to irritate a fugitive into submission is to make his telephone number public and let the telemarketers have a field day.

That Dawood lives in the upscale Clifton, Karachi is something almost everyone knows. It is not a secret. The story is as old as an ice age relic. But the much-needed humour in this piece was provided today by a TV channel’s phone call which entailed an inane query that really led nowhere – except to establishing the fact that Dawood likes to take a nice afternoon nap.

“Here is the evidence we have been looking for”, the television anchor shouted excitedly.

Dawood is not exactly losing any sleep in his fear of Indian agencies. But for how long can he enjoy the afternoon siesta? Now that his phone number is out here in India, hundreds of our telemarketers will make his life hell by offering to sell health insurance, mutual funds, 24x7 car help line, jeevan raksha kawach, personal loans and golf course-facing luxury apartments that are just a 20-minute drive from Connaught Place!

Someone came to watch our political satire show Aisi Taisi Democracy the other night and asked me: “Who writes your script?”

I said, “India writes the script for us.”

But when the separated-at-birth nations, India and Pakistan, decide to write a script together, it is a double whammy.

Be it cricket, or more serious stuff like the NSA talks, the two nations manage to make a tragicomic spectacle out of everything these days. Whether it is Shahraryar Khan or Sartaj Aziz, the red carpet quickly turns into a red flag. I am reminded of village weddings when one of the relatives almost always decides to sulk just before the much-awaited ceremony because of some obscure incident that happened eons ago. He is the proverbial “sulking phoopha” in my part of the world and always threatens to derail the wedding.

What we witnessed today is a wedding that has been called off many many times, but somehow we just refuse to learn.

We threaten each other with dossiers one day, and weapons-of-mass-destruction the next. When we tire of that, we turn to a series of impenetrable bureaucratese – composite dialogue, resumed dialogue, outstanding issues, strong message. And, of course, that family elder who everybody claims to respect but nobody really listens to – yes, I am talking about that holy grail called Shimla Agreement.

Sometimes, I wish stand-up comedians could take over India-Pakistan relations. But wait, they already have.

In the Bollywood film Don, Amitabh Bachhchan famously says - “Don is being pursued by police from eleven countries”. Now, what may really spook our real-life don is not the police pursuit but the Peepli-style media frenzy that may descend on him in the days to come.

Who knows, the ageing Dawood may just end up buying health insurance. NSA talks can wait.