"The Cousins are extremely active these days."

"How can you say that? One cousin, visibly subdued, has left the country for treatment of angina - which by the way my uncle who suffers from it says is not life threatening and is treatable in Pakistan - while the Khan is going it alone."

"Two things, some angina patients require stents; others require a change in lifestyle..."

"And Qadri sahib opted for lifestyle change by leaving the country?"

"Don't be facetious, the guy is not well anyway if you had money wouldn't you go to the US for treatment?"

"Not for angina - maybe for kidney transplant..."

"That doesn't show you have confidence in our doctors and hospitals, just that you don't have enough money."

"Hah, ha that's right."

"Anyway you misunderstood - the cousins I was referring to were the Chaudhry cousins - Chaudhry Shujaat and Chaudhry Pervez Elahi."

"I thought it is more usual to refer to those two as brothers. See real blood cousins refer to each other as brothers in our country while ideological brothers refer to each other as cousins."

"Hey, the ideology of the two men - Qadri and Khan - is markedly different."

"Yes, but they did come together on one platform - to give a dharna on Constitution Avenue..."

"Not true, the Khan is on parade ground and Qadri was on Constitution Avenue."

"Don't nit-pick; how far is the parade ground from the Constitution Avenue?"

"It's one step away, but you must surely realise that all borders, including our border with Afghanistan and India are just one step away..."

"Not Afghanistan I hear, because our army has dug a ditch and so a bit of that border is a ditch away and..."

"You are being facetious."

"Nope, the Afghans are angered at the ditch though Lord knows why - I mean our bad Taliban cant return but then the Afghan bad Taliban cannot also return to Afghanistan."

"My point exactly."

Author: Anjum Ibrahim
Source: Business Recorder