DRAMA

Poppy snapped in our flowerbed. We had brought the sapling from a hotel in Chitral during our last year's visit to the Hindu Kush mountains.

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF HIPPIES 

By: Nasser Yousaf 

The President had visited Yucatan, where the henequen plantations had been divided up among the Indians. They had taken him to see Chichen Itza. 'Mr. President, nowhere else in the world are such ruins.' But he turned impatiently away and said: 'They are nothing to the ones I shall leave behind me.'

The Lawless Roads by Graham Greene 

One Act Drama

Naseem Akbar: Chairman

Shamsul Huda: Deputy to the Chairman 

Imad Ullah: Leader of the opposition 

Sudais Khan: Chief of the ministers

Haibat Abdaal: Law Minister

Thor Khan: Food Minister 

Sabar Gul: Health Minister 

Gul Andama: Opposition member 

Sundry members and officials

(Chairman is seated on a raised seat in the round hall. Three officials, all in black robes and sporting grey flowing beards, are seated one-step lower on an ornate stage. Cops in official fatigues wait on the chairman behind his chair with a long royal backside. The chairman with a rumpled stubble speaks in a phlegmatic voice)

Chairman: Recitation from the Holy Scripture to begin. 

(A clerical official sporting a long grey beard in a knee-length sherwani appears at the dais and starts recitation)

Chairman: (somewhat struggling and appearing to be looking for a spittoon) Honourable members, let me first read the agenda for our today's special session.The Minister for Law will present the item on behalf of the minister in-charge of narcotics control who is on a tour to oversee the cultivation of hemp in the hills.

Haibat Abdaal: Mr. Chairman, it is an honour for me to submit the Bill before this august house. This Bill aims at the cultivation, promotion and consumption of hemp in our grand old province. 

(No, no, no, over our dead bodies, members from the opposition benches rise in their seats and start chanting slogans. The Chairman orders them in vain to sit down and listen quietly. Exasperated, he then asked the Minister for Law to proceed with his reading)

Haibat Abdaal: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am not old enough to be a witness to what I have heard and read that our erstwhile Frontier was once on the world's hippies' trail. Hippies from all over Europe would converge on Peshawar after crisscrossing many countries including Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan. They came here to enjoy the best quality cannabis which our land and people had the honour of cultivating.

(What rubbish is this guy talking about, an agitated member rises and was joined by some others. But the Chairman snubbed them and ordered their mikes to be switched off)

Haibat Abdaal: Sir, these honourable members have no sense of history so we cannot expect them to appreciate and take pride in what our incredibly popular government wished to do for the welfare of our people. Sir, I was saying that older people talk of those glorious times with a kind of nostalgia. Both men and women strolled our bazaars and roads with gay abandon. They looked to be very innocuous younger people with long hair and dressed in ragtag pants and shirts. They came in droves to enjoy what we offered them very cheap and in abundance. That sent a very beautiful message to the world about our fabled hospitality. Alas! our present generations are unable to behold those spectacles.

One Elderly Member: But they brought with them lice, fleas and sicknesses. Who are those dimwit bureaucrats who have spun this ludicrous tale only to pile more misery on us. 

(Booing and catcalls followed this and continued like a hymn throughout the reading of the preface to the bill)

Haibat Abdaal: But we needn't despair as our imaginative founder has instructed us to work towards reviving that era. It is unfortunate that while we ignored the hippies, our hostile eastern neighbour glorified the hippies and made several movies surrounding the subject of hip-hop culture. I love that old song still ringing loudly: dam maro dam, mitt jaye gham. Imagine, my dear Chairman, what a stupendous boost would it give to our image once we succeeded in beckoning hash and hemp-loving folks from all across Europe and even America to our climes.

(At this point in time, Gul Andama left her seat and went across the aisle where she unfurled a poster which had the effect of showing a red rag to the bull. Many members from the treasury benches jumped from their seats to physically attack Gul Andama. Shamsul Huda who had since occupied the seat of the Chair in the absence of Chairman ordered the sergeants at arms to intervene)

Shamsul Huda: Ms. Gul Andama you must not drag soldiers to the house. You must apologize otherwise I will suspend your membership. We should encourage positive legislation, and this is one such legislation which our people in the mountains are looking forward to. I come from the mountains and I can imagine the dazzling panorama that poppy crop on our terraced fields would present for the visitors. It will boost tourism which our founder keeps saying can make us the richest people in the world. I know for sure that our younger people in the mountains love singing priases of hash.

(This further enraged the opposition benches and they started raising slogans against the Chair)

Gul Andama: Shocking! What I hear from the chair should be a matter of great concern for everyone. It is this mindset which has led people to taking pride in calling themselves by ridiculous names like Mr. Cannabis. And it is this attitude of unbelievable nonchalance and complicity that no action has been initiated against people like Thor Khan for letting wheat worth twelve billion rupees rot in the godowns. I now understand the reason for the scandalous silence of Sabar Gul as Haibat Abdaal is distorting facts to play with the health of our youth.

Thor Khan: An inquiry is underway and whosoever is held responsible for the wheat fiasco will be dealt with, so you better stop targeting me. 

Sabar Gul: Hemp has not been found to be harmful for health as we hear that it is being used as a medicine for thousands of years. But anyhow, if the consumption of hemp was found to be bad, our founder has already put in place a free medical scheme, hence you better not worry.

Imad Ullah: What we hear from Haibat Abdaal appears to be an affirmation of what people talk about us in whispers. People have long suspected that there were only two roads to riches in our land; drugs and forests. Do you seriously believe, Mr. Sudais Khan that our salvation lies in the cultivation of hemp?

Sudais Khan: Of course, I do. Our founder is the greatest thinker of all times. His thoughts are not without solid reasons. We are madly in love with him and his philosophy. Look at me, for instance, I come from the area that best knows the value of hemp. He wouldn't have selected me if he didn't know about the wealth that my constituency possessed. Now please let Haibat Abdaal conclude what he has to say on this subject.

(While the house presented a picture of fish market and resonated with slogans of all types, Haibat Abdaal rose again but before he could wind up, Gul Andama began screaming showing paperballs to the Chair which she claimed the treasury benches had thrown at her and which contained cannabis)

A treasury member: How do you know it's cannabis and how on earth should you know what cannabis is?

Gul Andama: Everyone and their aunts in this province knows what cannabis is and how it smells. Are you all not singing its praises? I will show these proofs to the media persons.

Haibat Abdaal: You may do what you want. Here I would like to submit that our chief has reminded me of our own valley surrounded by hills which were once famous for what attracted hippies from the west. I am a witness to how those hills would present a riot of colours in the fields during the peak poppy season. It used to be a spectacle worth beholding and the glow on the faces of both the landlords and the peasants would renew our faith in the fecundity of our lands. I can proudly say that it's not textbooks but the poppy fields that tell us what colours mean and how they should look like. Unfortunately, a propaganda was unleashed against poppy crop and poppy has literally become a forgotten subject. But we would not allow this to happen. We are strong believers in The Theory of Comparative Advantage presented by David Ricardo decades ago. This theory is a beacon for us as it says a country should ideally produce only that which best suited its land, resources, expertise and indeed even culture. So here I submit before this house the Bill for the cultivation, promotion and consumption of hemp throughout our land. 

Shamsul Huda: Those in favour of the Bill presented by the Law Minister Haibat Abdaal may please say aye.

(Amid total chaos, slogans and physical blows, Shamsul Huda announced that the Bill had been adopted and adjourned the house indefinitely)

Curtain