Retirement of a patriarch.

GEN Qamar Bajwa was rather busy during his six-year tenure and didn't get much time to air his views. After all, army chiefs do not give interviews or interact with journalists the way politicians do. Now, after retiring, he seems to have time to spare; not just to talk, but also for chance encounters with journalists - some imagined, some real.

So much has been said and so much denied that it is easier to apologise in advance for commenting here on any particular incident which has been or may be denied in the future. But, for a moment, if we assume the journalists were not simply dreaming of speaking to a retired general the way men fantasise about chatting with Deepika Padukone, then it is interesting to note what he was asked about and what he wants to speak on.

It seems there was little in our recent army chief's military career which was related to professional matters. It is an intriguing thought that, for a military which has fought a hard war against militancy for over a decade, none of us have any questions about it and nor do the generals have much to say. Is it because some of us were so removed from the battle scene that we know little about it? Or because the more high-profile uniformed ones are generally known more for the shadow they cast on the political realm than the battleground they may have fought on? General B is not the only one; if I ever got the chance to talk to any of the key military officers who are serving or have served, I, too, would like to ask questions of the siyasi kind.

Be that as it may, let's return to General B, who is in the mood to talk - it seems he feels he owes his side of the story to the people and he owes it now. He doesn't want to wait and, say, write a book. He wants to tell his story, and it is a story in which he carries little blame.

If even the military men didn't know the full picture, who really did?

The earlier accounts - a more neutral word than interview - aim to tell the story of a well-intentioned man who brought a new party to power because he thought it would be good for the country; but then was disappointed in his choice and dumped it faster than DiCaprio dumps his girlfriends. In this account, Imran Khan is simply incapable of ruling - for reasons ranging from his choice of people, to the corruption of those around him, to his blunders on the diplomatic front.

But it can also be read as a mea culpa - of the management of the political system by the country's most powerful...