Picture Culture

A picture on  page-5 of “The News” 10 December shows the Saudi Ambassador Abdulaziz bin Ibrahim Al-Ghadeer calling on Senator Muhammad Ali Durrani.  Two things caught my immediate attention.  First, the ambassador looked real smart attired in a designer’s western suit complete with what must have been a pure silk stripped necktie with a matching kerchief. Second, the presence of a framed picture of the Saudi monarch perched conspicuously on a table that seemed to have been placed deliberately between the visitor and the senator. There was also a standing standard in the background that looked like the Saudi flag. The senator had certainly created an aura of Saudi atmosphere for the occasion. Somehow it all reminded me of a comedy movie “Hotel Sahara” of my young days. The hilarious story of the film revolved around the Second World War hotel in a city of African desert which came under the alternate occupation of the Allied and Axis forces a number of times. At the advent of each occupation, whether by the Allieds or the Axis, the hotel manager had to change in anticipation the entire décor of the hotel, the pictures (of Hitler, Mussolini, Churchill or Roosevelt) and the countries’ flags and buntings etc. to welcome the occupying force. The tantrums and the panic were real hilarious when the occupying troops turned out to be other than what the manger expected and everything had to be altered covertly to meet the changed situation without its being detected by the invader.

 Pray the Senator doesn’t face a situation ever like that.

 Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)