"I would strongly advise you to desist from taking any stand - the matter is sub judice, the judgment reserved and due soon so lay off Panama."
"Hey, I wasn't referring to Panama...you know I did a survey and the number of Pakistanis who learnt about Panama being a country rose from only 3 percent of the total population to over 75 percent after the hearings began."
"And 2 percent of the Pakistani population knew where Panama was located geographically before the hearings and presto! Only 2 percent of Pakistanis know where the country is located after the hearings."
"Hmmm, so lessons truly learned."
"And I would like to ask you who did the survey. Surely not the International Republican Institute headed by McCain that undertook a survey about Mian sahib's popularity from 27 September to 26 October in 2016 and came up with the conclusion that Mian sahib is by far the most popular individual in the country but did not carry the survey on its website and when I emailed IRI asking for details I got no response."
"And rightly so, sceptics like you need to be ignored...let me tell you that the IRI has put on its website a statement dated 9 February 2016 that 4,978 voting-age residents of Pakistan from 75 districts across the provinces of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan (excluding the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Chitral) were selected."
"But the statement does not give details of the survey and what I simply didn't understand was their contention that 'this survey was undertaken to provide a tool for political parties to develop sound policy solutions that reflect public priorities. As such, IRI does not intend to release the information publicly but rather seeks to have it inform policy development undertaken by Pakistan's political parties'. I mean the survey was released publicly by the PML-N as proof that Panama had not dented Mian sahib's popularity and..."
"Hey, Trump heads the Republican party so who really knows what is meant by that statement! Anyway you never said why you thought Mian sahib was unfair to Pakistanis?"
"He reckons we are simply not worth showing his extremely expensive Saville Row suits to? I mean he went to the Pakistan Day parade in an achkan which granted is the bee's knees of our national dress and costs a lot but compared to a Saville Row suit its peanuts."
"But..."
"There is no but. I mean the army's uniform is pants and shirt and methinks the Prime Minister may have been..."
"But the two are on the same page... the Prime Minister opted to wear a Pakistani dress on Pakistan Day. Though his Defence Minister was wearing a Western suit, though definitely not a Saville Row suit, he has other expenditure priorities I hear and..."
"Achkan is also an old world dress."
"That is precisely why we need a younger more modern Sharif to head us. The First Daughter is his right hand and will acquire expertise but with her unmatched zeal and commitment..."
"Zeal and commitment to what?"
"To transition from the First Daughter to the Prime Minister."
"Who said that?"
"The First Daughter."
"Ha ha ha."
Copyright Business Recorder, 2017