Last night I went to “Aalam-e-Roya” – to use Prof. Dr. Tahir-ul Qadri’s terminology – and came to know that Dr. Qadri had founded an Academy of Revolution. The façade was magnificent. As I entered, there was a huge hall packed with pupils who wanted to learn from Dr. Qadri’s experience in manufacturing revolution. In the front row were seated Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir I. Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin (LT and JJ were not comfortable sitting beside each other), Mao Tse Tung, Chou En Lai, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Roza Luxemburg, Mabindra Nath Roy, Hasrat Mohani and others. In the second row I could see Sajjad Zaheer, Syed Sibte Hasan, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Mian Iftikharuddin, Sardar Jafri, Akhtarul Iman, Sheikh Rashid (not the present one of Lal Haveli but Zulfi Bhutto’s companion famous for his generic scheme of medicine). There were student leaders like Tariq Ali, Ameer Hyder Kazmi, Syed Saeed Hasan and Hasan Nasir Shaheed.
Standing on the platform, Dr. Qadri was explaining working of a switch board. He was saying: “Press the red button and instantly you would have a ‘revolution’ in the making.” On one side of the platform, there were models of an aeroplane seat, a bullet proof car and a container for practical demonstration. All present was listening to him very attentively. Now and then Dr. Saheb would shout “Mubarak Ho, Mubarak Ho” to which the audience responded in frenzy. Dr. Qadri promised that in the next session he would teach how to bargain with the authorities.
Impressed by the august gathering, I decided to get admission to the Academy of Revolution. On the admission counter I found the Chaudhries of Gujrat, both Shujaat and Pervaiz, in pin-drop silence, listening to some telephonic address. Since I lack the intelligence required to converse with Chaudhry Shujaat, I gestured to Pervaiz Elahi that I wanted admission form. He told me that mere my degrees would not suffice, I would have to appear in admission test based on Dr. Qadri’s philosophy of revolution. He gave me a book with multi-colour cover (unlike the Red Book of Mao or Green Book of Qadhafi) which, according to him, contained pearls of wisdom. It is a miracle that although I have returned from “Aalam-e-Roya”, I have that book with me.