That sporadic fragility

Occasionally, very occasionally, our press does provide a little light relief amidst the daily doom and gloom with which we are beset. This light relief is seldom intended - as it was not last week when a column appeared advising our venerated head of state as to how he should preserve his health. Initially, the thought was that it was a tongue in cheek effort, but it turned out to be deadly serious. The presidents past reported ailments were listed - high blood pressure, high blood sugar, a bad back, possible narrowing of the heart arteries, and psychological problems. The finest advice given to modify risk factors for his reported ailments was in relation to avoiding high cholesterol levels. The answer to this is for him to draw back on his personal relationship with Mian Nawaz Sharif so that he is not fed a diet of parathas, nihari, siri payas, karahi gosht, and brain masala. The advisor on health admitted that for his age, the president seemed to be in pretty good nick. On astute observation made on why Asif Zardari precipitated himself into the presidency was his primary fear that he would end up in jail once again were he not the president. One must hope that the president happened to read this fine piece full of advice as to how, to quote the final exhortation: Live long and prosper. The presidents health factor has for too long been puzzling. Up to the ending of the year 1990 he was apparently in ultra-fine fettle and it was not until the dismissal of his wifes government, she being the prime minister, and the subsequent activity known in this land as 'political victimisation which entails arrest etc that he developed a string of ailments. This necessitated his admission into hospital and incarceration in a VIP sector. The pattern was repeated when his wife came back as prime minister in 1993. All ailments were put behind him and he emerged in the pink of health, in which felicitous state he remained until once again, disaster struck, and, once again corruption charges reared their extremely ugly head and Benazir Bhuttos government was for the second time dismissed in 1996. From then on last century, it was all downhill for the Zardari health with extended periods in hospital being treated for all sorts of health related problems. When he finally emerged in the new century, having been freed by a benign military dictator, he was fine and dandy other than when called to attend any court case. He had a whiz-fellow as a lawyer, the affable likeable Farooq Naek, who managed for uncountable years to obtain adjournments in uncountable court cases, mostly on the grounds of ill health. Naek, one is happy to say, has been rewarded for his skills and is now sitting pretty as chairman of the august Senate that houses all those senators indirectly voted in, who have little to do with the people and all to do with pliant and accommodating assembly members. (The president is not alone in his suffering from mysterious sporadic sickness - it is an affliction that all those in the VIP category who are hauled up for corruption or other charges have to bear when taken into custody.) We have no worries with a head of state who suffers the odd back pain, or even the odd blocked artery, but we do have to worry when the problem is more serious. Worrisome indeed was it on August 25, 2008 to have read in the Financial Times the news of the medical reports compiled by two New York based psychiatrists which had been filed in a London court to support an application to delay the corruption cases brought against Zardari by the Pakistan government. The diagnoses were delivered in March 2007 and successfully served their purpose. The FT report opened: Asif Ali Zardari, the leading contender for the presidency of nuclear-armed Pakistan, was suffering from severe psychiatric problems as recently as last year, according to court documents filed by his doctors. The presidential candidate had been diagnosed as suffering from emotional instability, memory loss and concentration problems, and major depressive disorder, surely a challenge to his fitness, to occupy the presidential chair. The court in London accepted the psychiatrists certificates and acted upon them. Zardari can always plead that the court was incompetent and that the psychiatrists were falsifying. An editorial of August 28, 2008 counselled: It would be unwise to dismiss the recent revelations about the fragile state of Mr Asif Zardaris mental health as irrelevant. However, he seems to be somewhat on the ball as he is writing with commendable regularity in the foreign press - the national press being not so lucky - in publications such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, with his latest offering being last Monday in The Guardian. His use of the personal pronoun maybe excessive but we can excuse that as being adopted 'under advice. There is perhaps no other head of state or government who finds it necessary to write so frequently, most of them being preoccupied in churning out deeds rather than words. The writer is a freelance columnist. Email: jilani.amina@gmail.com