Bilawal Bhutto: Making of an omelette

Eggs and tomatoes are very important things. Especially for those who can combine them to make the basic omelette. Not the frilly, cheese-stoked, gourmand varieties. The basic one - whisked-egg-meets-tomato-meets-chopped-onion (and some chillies thrown in for taste with the requisite salt) that can make for a quick breakfast or an anytime snack. Remember "Sunday ho ya Monday, roz khao ande"? Those who buy eggless cakes, please excuse all of the above. Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, who was at the receiving end, can, of course, read on.

It is even more disturbing when such edible items are deployed to great effect to shame people by pelting them. In this writer's student days, such reaction was saved for horrendous amateur theatre or for student union leaders who couldn't pull off a college strike the day the most-hyper-triple-X-ed film starring nut-numbing nymphs was releasing or for singers singing off-key pop numbers. The idea is to leave a stink so great that phenyl, soap and shampoo can’t wash out that cloying-sulphur smell of egg. Combine this with the berry's juice-pulp - the tomato is a berry, we may call it a vegetable, but since a rose by any name will still be a rose, the berry doesn't mind the misnomer. But try calling an Indian a citizen of Pakistan as many have when the Indian and the Pakistani have migrated for better prospects to many countries including those in the Arabian Peninsula and the US of A.

Now that this writer has introduced India and Pakistan into this piece, we can lay those poor eggs and tomatoes to rest. Those tousling the Pakistan People's Party's scion-turned-leader Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s hair must be wondering at its lustre if they can overcome the egg-citing (oops!) smell. Poor Bhutto-Zardari was pelted with the two "projectiles" by Kashmiris at the famed Kashmir Million March at Trafalgar Square in London on Sunday.

The Kashmiris, a PTI (Press Trust of India and not Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf) report said, were angry that Bhutto-Zardari’s party was trying to hijack the issue to stay relevant in Pakistan politics.

Dynasts have had it hard in the subcontinent for quite some time. Twitter has been awash with Bhutto-Zardari jokes, some even wishing the PPP leader had come out with his wisdom before elections to the Lok Sabha picked up in India, referring to the ridicule the Congress dynasts had exposed themselves to. Remember Rahul Gandhi and the escape velocity of Jupiter?

Exactly a kilometre away in Parliament Square, the Occupy Democracy protest wound up on Sunday after ten days of intense police-versus-protester standoff, getting negligible media coverage apart from @davidgraeber tweets. The police threw every bylaw in the rule book at the protesters, who were at their agitating for a more representative democracy. Maybe Bhutto-Zardari could have attended too and learned a great deal.

Or he should have packed a few pans and stoves from his contacts before the Trafalgar Square egg-tomato jugalbandi. He could have managed some anda burji even if he had egg on his face.