THIS is a season of slogans. Yes, the slogans that always mesmerise you, rather numb your memory in a way that makes you forget what you just have passedthrough. Tall promises and handsome pledges are again at your doorstep, pleading you to get back on your toes and seek swif t liberty f rom the humiliation you are supposedly pushed into. Just do not ask any question about who pushed you in.

In response, you also raise romantic hurrahs. You start dreaming; dream about your home as being in a utopian world where people from across the world would crave to visit your locale with heavy investments held tightly in their clenched fists, where there would be no lenders, like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to restrain your life, where there would be smooth roads promoting foreign tourism that would bring in billions of dollars, where there would be winds of peace and comfort.

You lent your attentive ears to such slogans every time there was a general election in the country. You got carried away.

You may get carried away yet again.

But, before you slip away completely, just a few questions: are you doomed to listen to the trumpeted slogans? Can`t you measure things by what you were given materially and practically? Can`t you weigh the slogans with their implementations later? If you cannot do that, then you and I are doomed to be fooled. Let us enjoy the melody of the slogans, tall promises, and handsome pledges. The lullaby is melodious.

Muhammad Tahir Iqbal Lahore