Theatre of the Absurd.

Outline.

1. Introduction.
 What is absurdity?
 What was theatre of absurd a reflection of?
 Link to Pakistan’s scenario.
 TS: Democracies theatre in Pakistan has been nothing but absurd in nature
since it abandoned its prescribed plot envisioned by the founding playwright.
It then comes as no surprise that the acts in Pakistan´s theatrical history have
deviated to mirror the absurdities of a tradition of weak governance,
incompetent leadership, and weak social democratic structure. The question
lies in whether the audience will continue to tolerate the disorder being
marvelously justified using one excuse or the other.

2. Tracing the history of Pakistan to pin-point the absurdities.

 A rocky start.
 Constitution what?
 Beard or no Beard? Left or Right?
 The east Pakistan fiasco, a superiority complex?
 A degree is a degree. (Degree degree hoti hai, chaye jaali ho ya asli)
 “Army Chief is our nations father”- Shehryar Afridi

3. ?
One of the oldest memories that serves me is sitting with my mother when I was ten years
old. She had just been elected to the National Assembly of Pakistan, and she was explaining
to me how her work would require her to travel to Islamabad and then my village, and she
would be home only for the weekends. Not understanding what such things meant at the
moment, I protested and asked her to not take the job, but she elaborated why it was
necessary. She told me about how God had blessed her with such a position, and how through
His blessing, she could help thousands of people. It was then that I developed an initial
understanding of what being a politician meant. It meant serving the people and helping
them, and to a ten-year-old, it seemed like the most noble job one could have.

A few days after my mother left, me and my father were watching television while having
dinner. On one of the news channels, two politicians were heatedly arguing over something
that I could not make sense off. For some reason, they kept being sarcastic to each other, and
one of the two kept getting angrier. I was just thinking about why these politicians were
sitting here talking to each other in such an uncultured manner instead of helping people as
my mother was doing when suddenly, one of the men picked up a glass and hurled it at the
other. The glass missed, and the victim of the attack, instead of refraining himself, picked up
his glass and swung it back at this attacker, which missed again, but caused one of the men to
fall down rather comically. My father had stopped eating and after witnessing what had
happened for a minute started laughing, and used some mild curse words that most Punjabi
kids are used to, to describe both the politicians.