Blah Blah from The TeaBreak Team.

But Sunday night, I went to an engagement. And I’m glad I did. You see, it was my father’s personal assistant who had chosen to get married to a girl and in the process chosen to change his belief system with it. Since his mother was appalled (she has a right to her own opinion), she chose to stay away. So my father proxied as his chaperone and guardian and we went along as support for the engagement party.

It was such an eye-opener. The girl’s family weren’t your run off-the-mill millionaires but lived in an apartment complex on the far side of town. Money shouldn’t be used as a gauge of intellect or decency because I was impressed with how well-groomed and educated they were, from the adults down to the little kids who went to English-medium schools and were doing really well at their academics. With three families sharing an apartment of four of five rooms, they looked like they got along and played splendid hosts to us.

We were treated as honored guests and after a scrumptious meal and local engagement traditions were played out, we left our hosts with a goodbye and pleasant smiles for the memories that they had shared with us.

It took me a while to write this post. I wrote it and then I let it be. You see, I felt I didn’t do justice to the institution of marriage nor to the people who I had met. They had impressed me much and reinforced my belief that Pakistan might be a crumbling nation in many ways but there were stupendous human resources out there for us, if only we tapped the right places.

As my CEO says, one day he wants someone from a village surrounding one of our plant sites to be the next CEO of our company. As I say, one day someone from the many villages in our country should grow up and rule us. Only then will we truly care about the poor and be not only a land of pure but a land of pure opportunities.

This cup of tea was served by: Yawar’s blog