PMs and the Umeras

I just couldn’t help laughing when on a private tv channel I heard Mr. Shahid Siddiqui – an economist – commenting upon the possibility of a 15 billion dollar bail out by the Saudi government said, that it all depended upon Mian Nawaz Shareef’s going for Umera after becoming the Prime Minister and meeting with the Saudi monarch there to plead for the terms of it being an aid or a grant.  His mention of going for Umera after taking over as the PM was so mechanical, natural and spontaneous that it looked as if performing of the Umera was  also an inalienable part of the duties to be performed by the newly installed PM of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.  I don’t know if it is so?  But if it is, I sincerely hope that the PM will not take with him a plane load of the free loaders to the most sacred house on this planet who at your and my cost might  try to seek a free entry even to the paradise which, who knows, might not b e otherwise so  easily available to them.

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)