The prices of almost everything have doubled, if not more, in the past two months. Oil prices, loadshedding and the dollar-rupee parity are the excuses given. Even the talk of rising prices is an excuse in itself for every vendor to raise prices of his wares. What should the common man do? There is no answer to this question. The government is busy playing the presidential game. Nawaz Sharif is busy getting judges back on the bench. Ministers are busy attending this meeting or that to draft this or that. The PM is busy doing nothing. Where should we go? All that the common man, your average salaried person, needs is some concrete, result-bearing step that could arrest this painful daily rise in prices. All he wants is to make the both ends meet. But these 'both ends' are seemingly miles apart. Not everybody has suffered. Wholesalers, retailers, middleman, service-providers, merchants etc have all seemingly adjusted with the rise in prices, adjusting their margins of profits with it. It's just the common man who has been squashed. Somebody please do something for him too. -AMJAD HABIB MIRZA, Lahore, via e-mail, August 24.