So I tried to re-read Shahabnama as part of my current Urdu reading marathon and let the Good Lord be my witness, I tried to be as objective and dispassionate as possible, but ...waii moray!

I have never read a more self-righteous self-aggrandizing piece of drivel.

It is just relentless, unabashed shameless, ceaseless, self-righteous sanctimoniousness.

I mean, I get it. It is your memoir. But atleast make an effort at some soul-searching, some selfcriticism. Humanize yourself. There is no shame in that. We all have our faults.

The only agreeable parts are when he talks about his wife and mother.
The fact that the books remains a national bestseller after so many years is just a sad reflection of our intellectual bankruptcy.

Truth be told, I have my prejudices against Qudrat and his gang..

(Ashfaq Ahmed, Bano Qudsia, Mumtaz Mufit etc), and I am very skeptic about the spiritual karamaat Babay(s) but this was part of an effort to reach out to the other side; but, boy, it is hard. It just gets under your skin.

Atleast Mumtaz Mufti, Shahab's self-proclaimed protege, in Talash, makes an earnest attempt at soul searching. Concedes his own failings. His spiritual view is selfdeprecating. Goes about it with some humility. Which is why it is not hard to empathize with him.

The one thing that bugs me about Shahabnama is how,almost always, those who enjoy elite bureaucratic positions in the civilian and military bureaucracy are the most PATRIOTIC and PAK-POSITIVE HOPEFUL ones.

You wd think seeing the rot upclose would fill them with circumspection.

Magar nahi. Majaal hai jo nisaab-maarka hub-ul-watni aur khush-fehmi mai zarra barabar bhi kami aaye. Koi khiffat ya nidaamat ho.

Shahab has an entire chapter where he waxes lyrical about how Pakistan will become the pre-eminent power in the world.

We know how that turned out

I hate to say this but Shahab and his gang, have done a tremendous disservice to this nation. At a time when a newlyformed nation needed reason, science and rationality to excel, they (in collusion with the state apparatus) fed the first post independence generation..

...unreason, irrationality and, dare I say, medieval spirituality that had little place in the second half of the 20th century.

We could have been what South Korea or Singapore are today, who started with similar handicaps. Even Vietnam has got it right.