A lifeless show.

Not many people are perhaps aware of the fact that until 1976, we were not too certain about the exact date of Allama Iqbal's birth. Our ignorance about it exposed the limits of curiosity that we really have here in comparison to a society that genuinely relishes its literary heritage.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had been the prime minister those days. He persuaded Faiz Ahmad Faiz, a giant of Urdu poetry, to advise him for culture promotion and Faiz Sahib was almost obsessed to locate the exact date of Allama's birth.

Faiz Sahib's obsession in this respect looked too odd to many cynics. After all, throughout his life Faiz was often condemned as a communist, etc., while Allama was considered the real inventor of the idea (not the ideology) of Pakistan, which aspired for a separate homeland for the Muslims of India, once the British quit it.

Faiz was fully supported in his quest by Qudratullah Shahab, then federal secretary of education and culture besides being an acknowledged master of Urdu prose in his own right. Academics and researchers like Dr Kaniz Yousaf and Professor Fateh Muhammad Malik zealously adopted their quest. Finally, after diligently employing all available tools of studious research November 9, 1877, was fixed as the exact date of Allama's birth.

Bhutto had been planning to surprise his opponents by going for early elections in the same year. When informed about the discovery of Allama's exact date of birth, he ordered the Culture Ministry to celebrate 1977 as Iqbal's Year by staging various mega events throughout the year.

Doing so, he also expected some political dividends for like Faiz Sahib he had also been often accused of being a 'socialist deviant,' pushing the Islamic Republic of Pakistan away from its core ideology. Faiz Sahib also agreed to translate a selection of Allama's Persian poetry. And, I finish my travelling down the memory lane here that I was swayed to while sitting in the press gallery Tuesday.

Before my reaching there, cutting across the party divide many legislators had decided to discuss the question whether November 9 should be declared as a national holiday.

Tuesday is reserved for private initiatives in legislation. Instead of coming out with something substantive on this day, a backbencher decided to demand national holiday on November 9 to pay 'appropriate tribute' to one of the original founders of Pakistan via a resolution, the passage of which does not bound a government to act upon it.

The...