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OP-ED: Talking of Michelangelo —Anjum Altaf

The point is that a page from my diary won’t do. A column’s got to have a point or two, boys, as Fagin would have said if Fagin had been in the business of writing columns instead of picking pockets

Ejaz Haider’s defence of his columnists notwithstanding (The Fabergé calculus, Daily Times, May 2, 2004), the point is a column needs a point. Without a point it is not going to provoke or needle or tickle. And if it is not going to do that it is going to be flat. And what good is a flat column except to meet a deadline? Better to miss, I say.

If a column didn’t need a point one could just as well send in a page from one’s diary. I got up feeling sort of grumpy this morning. The Fauji cornflakes were soggy and depressing. I couldn’t think of anything to advise the government on and there wasn’t anything in the paper to copy into my column. All there was were references to the law taking its own course, X crushing Y with an iron hand, and a monster running amok with its teeth in its tail.

I decided to take my dog out for a walk but it was in a foul mood too and insisted on staying on in my ex mother-in-law’s bed. I had to go alone. The only comfort was the thought of lunch being cooked by mother’s younger brother from a recipe he had picked up on our last trip to Malta. It really did live up to its billing. Sated, I read Proust in order to remember things past and, in between remembering and forgetting, dozed off to sleep. I don’t know if I snored or not because I was not awake. I am really sorry for not being able to update you on this important matter.

No, no, this won’t do even though Daily Times editors and readers are so supportive. I get tons of mail asking my dog’s name and prescribing raw ginger dipped in honey for her. I have had to inform readers that mother’s younger brother has since migrated from Wah to the vicinity of New Rochelle and is now living there under the name of Coalhouse Porter. One reader asked my opinion on why Malta was called Malta and another sent greetings to my friend Jimmy whose Christmas fires are known all over the northern areas.

Still and all! It would be another matter if I were David Beckham’s masseuse and a page from my diary could confirm if the fetching Ms Loos actually did see what she claims to have seen. But anyone can see I am no masseuse. The sub-editor insists on putting my mug shot up there for all to see. She says Sir would be very displeased if she made an exception. I told her my left side was horribly disfigured but she insisted that the good side was good enough. So there it is above my good name. Phooey to you, Sir, whoever you are, for blowing my cover.

The point is that a page from my diary won’t do. A column’s got to have a point or two, boys, as Fagin would have said if Fagin had been in the business of writing columns instead of picking pockets.

Of course, there are points, and there are points and a columnist has to be mindful of his point. There are silly points, if you know what I mean. Any column reproducing scorecards from the last match risks being banished to deep long off. There are big blunt points you can’t miss like the uniting throes of the ummah or the merging pains of the Muslim Leagues. I guess they are there for the folks who like to tune into the story instantly regardless of when they wake up from their sleep.

Heavy dialectical points in Prussian armour inflicting the dreaded grundnorm are asking for Wittgenstein’s red-hot poker. It’s a relief the bearers need frequent rests to recover their breath. And too much play on the counterpoint deserves a counterpunch in drut laya (dhirdhir nana, dhirdhir nana) till the sa re pa dha are hanging out from the abdomen.

There’s always the point so fine the reader is left searching for the roots in Greek mythology. Did the crafty columnist pull off a number trick feigning convergence to a point with a series that was never destined to converge? No, dear reader, you didn’t get it; you didn’t get it at all. That’s the daily puzzle in the Daily Times. It’s called, Where’s the point? You are meant to find it while the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo. To the President, no less.

How thoroughly exasperating! That would have to be Goldilocks’ verdict if Goldilocks ever stumbles upon the Op-Ed world of Daily Times. A columnist’s got to get the point just right. Not too fine, not too obtuse, not too heavy, not too light. Not some airy-fairy point. Just the right point, right side up. Just the way the Goldilocks, not Ejaz Haider, wants it.

And you can have it too, dear reader. Very soon you’ll be able to point your pointer and customise your newspaper — page one from here, page two from there, op-eds from anywhere. You’ll be able to flush all us pointy-headed columnists down the junk-mail folder to the vanishing point. We’ll commit hara-kiri on the points of our pointless pens and you’ll be master of all you survey.

Or mistress, if you will. Point taken.

The author is a Visiting Fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute in Islamabad (anjum@sdpi.org). The institute disowns these views

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