Well, it seems the Sri Lankan team of doctors has left, only to be replaced by an Indonesian team. It seems different scare tactics are being used. Instead of very dark Sri Lankans meant to scare the patients, they are to be scared with slant-eyed Indonesians. I suppose when next there is a dengue outbreak, there will be a team of Pakistani doctors who will be rushed there, having in the meanwhile grown expert in the disease. They will be busy scaring the patients, probably by pulling scary faces, because they cannot compete with their Sri Lankan or Indonesian counterparts in natural talent. And one of the things last week that acted as a bulwark against the treatment of dengue was the terrible loadshedding, which seemed to have climaxed last weekend. There was no mention of dengue later on, when the protests erupted, but Im sure that it was at the back of the protesters minds. I mean, if one stayed at home, one would probably catch dengue, and die that way, so it might well be better to die at the hands of the police. There was some police firing in the air to disperse the protesters, which was a sort of promise by policemen (probably of the rank of DSP, almost certainly fat and who waddle rather than walk) that they would outdo their Arab counterparts, and would be willing to kill in defence of the regime. Luckily, no one was killed, and for some reason, this writer was reminded of the most common use of a revolver in this part of the world: hitting people with the butt. That is, after firing in the air. I suppose the real reason is that if, in the FIR, the complainant says that the accused used a blunt instrument (like a chair leg) to hit the victim, it would be plain assault, not assault with a deadly weapon as if a pistol has been used, if only the butt. Anyway, in the good old days, you had about a dozen people running in for an assault, all with revolvers, all firing only into air, and beating up their victims, but with pistol butts. This is what is known as a pistol-whipping. I havent heard of such a case, but the law of averages says that somebody should have been hit on a sensitive spot like the temple during a pistol-whipping, and so the perpetrator must have faced the charge he was trying to avoid, that of murder. But firings into air were the least of the peoples problems. We were made to realize how dependent we have become on electricity, especially if it was only available for an hour in three. It almost seemed that life was turned off when there was no electricity. And if there are small children in the house, you really find out. Because though there is sometimes a nip in the air, it is still very much summer, and temperatures are very high. Though us grown-ups can make do without a fan, little ones cannot. The rule of thumb is that if your age needs to be expressed in two digits, you can take heat without a fan, but if your age is in single figures (not only should you not be reading this, not because of any X-rated material, but because the size of the print is not good for growing eyes), you can still make do without a fan. The protests that happened showed that if you ask hard enough for something, youll get it, because the government is scared of the Arab Spring. But while the protests had the government worried, not so much because people were feeling under pressure as because the official cars were in danger of being withdrawn, not to mention other perks of office, including a lavish lifestyle at the taxpayers expense, it must be conceded that the electricity has only gone, and very briefly at that, a couple of times this weekend. It makes you wonder why they had any loadshedding in the first place. Perhaps it was meant to tell the Americans that this was a Third World country, fit to have drone attacks launched on it, and to receive aid in suitcases in foreign exchange in small, unmarked bills, with 10 percent going to the right person. So we should be getting ready for some more loadshedding, because we still need to prove we are in he Third World, though the best proof is currently the President, and would be a military takeover, which would prove beyond doubt our being in the Third World, for only in the Third World do we have tinpot military dictators. And if we want to see the similarity between tinpot military dictators, we should notice how the PML(Q), which supported Musharraf, first resigned against the loadshedding, but then took back their resignations, coincidentally on the same day the MQM decided to return to office. So it seems the whole electricity crisis was meant to bring the MQM back to office. Was the sacrifice worth it? I leave you, dear reader, to decide.