DigiVoyager

I will preface this article by saying that Blade is not the sort of game you should play if you loathe jank and that specific brand of friction found in many PS1 games that weren't always fair, Now if you are in search of that techno/drum'n'bass/jungle in a club feeling that seems to be synonymous with many of the titles found on the original PlayStation while you hunt vampires, this is the game for you. It is its own vibe, and that is one of the best compliments I can pay. This is coming from the sort of person who always contextualizes a title in the period it was made, and always gives them the benefit of the doubt. Did I enjoy playing this on my laptop (which must surely be a vampire laptop at this point, having refused to buckle to time) at midnight, whiling away the night shift? Yes. Would I recommend anyone else to play it? Maybe if you don't mind sloppily made PS1 games, and seek the aforementioned mood, play it at midnight, it's got a very different vibe. Rain helps, too.

There are some videos on YouTube about how it is an underrated game with some interesting mechanics at play, and was approached wrongly by reviewers. Personally, I feel its reception is appropriate, it is the very essence of a flawed game (it also runs quite terribly, play it in an emulator with the CPU% set higher for your own sake) – but it must be remembered flawed doesn't imply it's terrible, or worthless, merely that it has a few issues. Indeed, Blade is one of those games where if you just run around, particularly in the first two levels, you will probably get to the Game Over screen faster than the lizard oil dealers near our government hospitals dive into some unknown alley when they see the police. They are, of course, surprised to see that some policeman as a customer, merely a day later but in plainclothes.

Yes, this is a thing, Cannabis addicts found aplenty in our government hospitals and rehabilitation centers, have started to prefer these. The poor fellows having only just left Cannabis, get hooked on these instead. The economics of this business are quite sound, Lizards being easy and free to source in numerous quantities, but I digress.

The issue with Blade is a simple one, it is of balance. Some of the enemies you come across, like the Zombies, are tuned such that they do next to no damage. Others (ones armed with Machine Pistols, particularly) tend to melt through your health bar. And often, it's at just the right distance that they're out of camera. As such, the designers have applied duct tape to the cracks in the game, much like the Pakistani government has duct taped our economy by killing all imports, and causing massive inflation. Inflation in Blade's case would be the excessive amounts of health boosters and first aid kits found throughout the game. An easy solution to this issue, I suppose. And while normally, such a game would ramp up the combat intensity, that doesn't happen except for two levels, which, roughness aside do remain my favorite levels.

Blade, you see, must be played with a very “I am now travelling the streets that phone grabbing gangs also love to patrol, and they are not shy about firing the gun” attitude. Indeed, it is a vibe that can only be likened to having low HP as you traverse the dungeon, hoping the game doesn't throw a random encounter your way. And the ensuing depression that comes with a party wipe, and having a save game only at the very start.

In essence, one must move slowly, become the R1 (control type B – lock on) button's best friend, so that you're alert to any enemies hidden in the distance. One must also love the strafe button, and be ready to just peek out of a corner in this particularly unwieldy manner so as to get the drop on enemies. Move slowly, and survey repeatedly, and the game is more manageable; besides the occasional ambush that costs you 30 minutes of hard earned progress. At its core, it is an endurance game, as getting from one save point to another will require you to learn well the enemy placements, and plan accordingly. There is one issue however, the stamina meter. Blade is very slow to strafe, and back up, especially when the stamina bar (vertical bar on left) is yellow. That is why you pop Serums, to make Blade strafe and back up faster, my advice is to use them liberally as there are plenty of them throughout the game, any time it feels like a crowded fight or you need that edge, pop a Serum.

Chinatown. One of the more eye-pleasing locations in the game, there is a decent number. There are also some fun drum'n'bass, techno and such tracks in the game, but also some very odd choices.

See that gauge in the top corner? It fills when you hold the lock-on/target button, and when it reaches full capacity, it flashes for a very brief interval. Shooting as it flashes will get you a headshot, this is pretty much the key (and only) mechanic of the game. Land headshots, and you will save ammo and be rid of enemies far quicker than otherwise, making the game far harder. This mechanic doesn't matter as much for when you need to empty a clip or two of the Machine Pistol into the enemy, but it is still critical in the long run. It is a consistent mechanic in that once you have a feel for the timing, you won't mess up. The Shotgun fills the fastest, the Machine Pistol the slowest, the Handgun being somewhere in the middle. As for the money, you get it by killing enemies, and throughout the game you will find Resupply points (rarer than save points) that let you spend around $200-250 to get an assortment of random ammo and items.

Not bad visuals for a PS1 game, Blade has some nice looking environments, sadly the models are not as flattering.

Now, the strategic part of the game besides moving slowly and carefully and being ready to rain a Machine Pistol clip full of death on any enemies just in case, comes from the resource management.

You have a Katana, a Handgun (weapon of choice of our local phone bandits), a Machine Pistol, a Shotgun, and a Multi-launcher that fires Blades (think throwing stars, not the character), Bolts as well as Grenades.

The resource management comes in like so:

Handgun: Standard and Carbon bullets Machine Pistol, Standard, Carbon and Silver Shotgun: Standard, Silver + Explosive Shells Multi-launcher: Standard and Silver blades, Standard and Explosive bolts.

Now, the strategy comes from the fact that the enemies in this game are basically divided into 4 types:

Humans: Weak to Standard Monsters: Weak to Carbon Vampires: Weak to Silver Nitrate All: Weak to Explosive

So you will have to ration your ammo properly, as they are all separate pickups. Or just get a ton of headshots. That is a general rule of sorts. You will also run into enemies wearing bullet proof armor and carrying shotguns, they're best dealt with using shotguns. Similarly, there are ninja vampires who will deflect your bullets by spinning their swords, making them invulnerable. Zombies are big on the ammo drain, but instantly taken care of with a headshot. Overall, the enemy designs in this game have a few cool ideas, despite how messy the title is. Explosive shells are a boon but they damage you too, so only use them at a good distance. The Katana is a great choice for various early game grunts and Svamps, as well as a few of the brute type enemies.

It may sound like a recipe for disaster, a slow paced tactical game that needs fast decisive action at times having so many ammo types for each weapon when the character himself controls so clunkily, but here is where the Weapon Select button (L1 – Type B) comes in. Holding L1 will freeze the game, letting you take all the time you need. You scroll through your weapons with Up and Down, while you change the type of ammo with Left and Right on the D-Pad.

I found a new version of the clown and circus meme. Perhaps it is a meta commentary, on me, the player. I hope not.

When the game nails atmosphere, it absolutely nails it. Especially in the Pallatine Building, and particularly in the ritual area. This Faustina Priestess is the real secret behind Pakistan's undead economy, though buried long ago, it continues to stick around somehow.

The difficulty of Blade's very uneven, it starts out relatively calm, but there is always that odd enemy or two that will get you with the Machine Pistol, and you will often find a nasty surprise late into the game. Sometimes, an ambush of two mini-bosses will mean your ruin due to the clunky controls. The boss fights, much like the main game itself are sloppy, but they do have some ideas behind them. Sloppy, but with some ideas, just about sums up the game.

The Museum isn't bad either, there is something about baked lighting that feels really pleasing to the eye. Simple. Comfortable.

Now, in terms of secrets, one level has an alternative exit, not really a big deal. More importantly, there are hidden throughout the game various glyphs (most are easy to find) that let you read lore about various vampire clans and types. Some of the glyphs near the end of the game let you unlock cheat codes like infinite ammo.

What is interesting is the final level. Throughout the game you can pick up weapons parts, there are 4 in total, to make a UV cannon. Should you find them all, you will get a shorter version of the final level that takes place at nighttime. I much preferred the daytime version you get when you don't have all the parts, as it is a far harder and more trying endurance test. The longer stage shares the final portion of its route with the short one, but you still get two different versions of the final boss though there the day time version is lame, as you just have to run around pressing buttons, whereas the UV cannon fight is tense due to its overheating mechanic.

Even at the zenith of the final level, Blade will take his time to enjoy a view, and so should you.

Watching Wesley Snipes in Deadpool and Wolverine brought back many nostalgic memories of better times for me (Blade 2 was quite popular in my school), I hope at least some part of this review was enjoyable.

All's West that ends West

A boy named West is born. One of two brothers, in fact. Perhaps he has a promising future.

Life is good to the boy. Sunny skies and clear waters, some great days for sailing. He is going to venture beyond the horizon, he will do great things. Of course, no one wonders why the boy is rich, they just enjoy the wealth.

But the boy is not as kind as he seems. As it turns out, he is a sneak. The boy steals from his brother, East, quite regularly, and everything, in fact.

The boy, now a mighty officer in the Men in Green^tm decides he does not want to mix with the common rabble, so he creates his own walled off community. Inspired by his very colonizers, who he idolizes for some reason.

Happy Independence Day? How bothersome. As a Man in Green^tm, it is imperative that West make a show of liking East, no matter how much he loathes him. Things must look alright, after all.

The boy continues to rob and exploit his brother, but enough is enough. He is no more welcome. East is done with West, he is no longer related to him. West is sent packing, and he will never be close to East again.

Now that the free ride has stopped, West can no longer enjoy his old life. A new friend, Mr. World Bank appears. West hates Mr. W.B., because he is practical, and reminds West that money doesn't grow on trees, even though he forgets practically every hour. Silly Mr. World Bank, West knows money doesn't grow on trees, it's printed for free. All made up, he laughs.

West skimmed through The Communist Manifesto, and he has decided it is time to nationalize Pakistan. Despite the finance minister and all the cabinet warning him not to do so, West knows best. He nationalizes the industrial sector by kicking out the dirty privateers that have seized the economy, now he will seize the means of production from them. He feels a little guilty about doing so, but life must go on, you know. Russia is Red, and now so will be Pakistan. Of course, West is shocked to see, the very tiger that carried his burdens, also fell off the narrow bridge he was on. West had failed to account for the bridge's length, sadly.

His citizenry, once booming and leading happy, blissful lives, are shocked to be crushed by this thing called inflation. Where did all the money go? Why is everything expensive? West's move to nationalize everything had crushed them, quite literally. No more free money from East, and now, the organizations that had once been great money makers, were loss making entities, costing billions. They wondered why.

Of course, good old West does not feel the consequences of his actions, in his walled garden. West had this picture taken to celebrate his achievements in bringing about the demise of private capital, which was also coincidentally the economy, some time later. The headstone, and indeed the grave plot, was paid for by selling state owned assets, of course.

And even though 52 years have passed, the ghost of his achievements, and indeed the prime minister of that time (standing to the left of the headstone) still haunts Sindh (and the rest of Pakistan) to this very day, and for the foreseeable future. Take that, dirty privateers!

In the end, things ended much like they started for West, but far worse. In almost every way possible, he was worse off than he had begun.

And what of East?

East too, had his struggles, and in fact, is still struggling. But unlike West, he has a better life now, and his citizenry has a more promising future. He is happy to know they still stand up for their rights, when needed.

And finally

Life does not get easier for West's people, as they are about to be visited by many great floods, one after another. All he can do is watch since he did not plan or account for them. Who ever said water security was a thing?

Before anyone gets any wrong ideas, this post is not a dig at America (I say this because my main readership is 100% American, population: one) for I know fully well the gaps in quality of healthcare, the ethics, the difference in service availability (one tertiary hospital here in Peshawar does not even have a cath lab, and hence no angiographies and so on) difference in FDA regulations and trial standards, among other things, though we do have our good institutes, too. It is rather a simple thesis, one that I have observed both sides of. And my own view is that, yes, all people of all nations should get state sponsored healthcare.

Simply, whether you are the richest, or the poorest nation, state sponsored healthcare is the most direct, and biggest investment you can make in the people. I do not care for any arguments to the contrary, for they are not humane.

Now, you may wonder how I have seen both sides of it. Well, in the previous government, the forcefully ousted Prime Minister had a programme called Sehat Card, one that ensured free health care coverage of essential procedures for all (and admittedly, the only flaw in this project was that the rich exploited this too, and steps are being taken to remedy this.) Briefly, when the average Pakistani, that laborer who wages war against his own body to make less than 4 dollars a day, suffers from an MI (Myocardial Infarction, heart attack in layperson terms) it is no longer a death sentence because he cannot afford stents (and trust me, no laborer can afford any serious procedure, many even struggle to buy insulin, even though it is on the cheaper side here). There are other ventures too, like the flagship National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases in Sindh where poor people can get state of the art treatment for free. The main hospital is in Karachi, and there are a further 9 satellite centres all over Sindh, with more to come. In fact, over 2.4 million patients, including those requiring surgeries, were treated free of cost at the National Institute of Cardiovasc­u­lar Diseases (NICVD) facilities across Sindh in 2023.¹

This is important because in Pakistan, governmental spending on healthcare per person, is quite low, lower than many developing countries, even Zimbabwe. Not only that, but the bulk of healthcare costs come from out of pocket spending, which means the poorer the person, the worse their burden.

Some data about it², to further illustrate just how much spending the Sehat Card curtailed (SCP here refers to Sehat Card Plus, all data is sourced from this report):

An independent evaluation team from Agha Khan University found that there was a significant reduction in medical care component of mean out-of-pocket expenditure for inpatient services for SCP users (PKR 1,006 ±9248) as compared with SCP nonusers (PKR 30,042 ±69014). As you can see here, the gap is astronomical. One is almost within the daily laborer's reach, the other is pronouncing a death sentence, almost.

The nonmedical component (transport etc.) was similar in both groups. The level of catastrophic health expenditure among households was significantly lower for SCP users (14%) compared to SCP nonusers (35%). The perception of economic wellbeing was higher among SCP users.

These tables should drive home just how impactful the programme is, no longer does healthcare have to eat the poor out of house and home. While the level of catastrophic health expenditure for all wealth quintiles and place of residence was significantly lower for SCP users as compared to SCP nonusers, note how those from the poorest wealth quintiles and rural areas especially are not incurring as many catastrophic health expenditures. Note also how those not availing state sponsored healthcare reported a more severe impact of hospitalizations.

I do not wish this to be a technical, jargon filled article so we will go back to the simpler side of things. Briefly, while there was poverty, there was also hope, promise of a future. With state sponsored health care, people need not die due to poverty, this was the easiest way of mobilizing the poor, downtrodden classes and it was working. However, after the ouster, the new government (let's leave aside the fact that they were not even chosen by the people) immediately froze the program for quite a while. Now, I have worked in the system for over a year (over two if we count my house job, which is an internship and three if we consider final year, which was spent in wards anyway) and I came into the system seeing the Sehat Card, saw what it did for people, and then I saw it frozen, and I saw the outcomes of it first hand. People with no money to pay, some were doomed to die due to poverty, others sold everything they had to get treatment (and that is in already subsidized government hospitals, where the government foots the bulk of the cost of most base line investigations – a basic panel consisting of a complete blood count, ESR, serum electrolytes, renal function tests, liver function tests among others, along with more specialized markers like Trop I, Trop T etc. – these cost the government way more, according to govt. hospital techs ) and many others simply avoid going to the hospital. Better misery and having some money than being left with nothing. The towering shadow of poverty cloaks every decision, and without state sponsored healthcare, it severely hurt socioeconomic mobility.

Some more stats from the previous document:

• Two-thirds of Sehat Card Plus KP users, at the time of discharge, did not report incurring out-of-pocket expenditure during admission. For the other one-third, the estimated mean expenditure was PKR 5,464 on medicines and PKR 3,519 on diagnostic tests.

• Average cost per admission was PKR 31,395, which was 20-40% higher in private hospitals. The KP government spent PKR 2.96 billion on 94,387 patients of which 0.83 billion (28.0%) were spent on treating cardiovascular diseases. The mean cost of treating cases of ischemic heart disease was PKR 89,919.

Now, government hospitals here often do not have all the facilities, they are also overcrowded, I myself did my housejob in one, and the chaos there is indescribable, we would be 10, 15 doctors dealing with over 400 patients in a day. I would often fall asleep in the doctor's room after being done with my shift at 8 PM, and go to my hostel room in the late midnight hours like 3, 4 AM despite it being a mere 5 minutes away. The real beauty of the sehat card lays in it allowing even the poorest citizen to get the best possible healthcare, at any facility of their choosing, even private.

Now, as per the report, there are concerns of its financial sustainability, but the health foundation is working on addressing those (the report is about a year old). They have gotten more aggressive with dis-empaneling of hospitals that try to exploit this, which is good to see, and started renovating more hospitals under public-private partnerships, which will be empaneled. They have even started working on upgrading the MIS (Management Information System) to integrate disease history, as well as financial means.

I will probably add more to this article someday, or I may not, part of me feels I sufficiently made my case, yet part of me wants to say much, much more, but alas there is no time nor energy. As always, Sayonara.

References: 1: Dawn News 2. https://sehatcardplus.gov.pk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Third-Party-Evaluation-Report-Sehat-Card-Plus-KP.pdf

Part 1: Wimbledon, and the privilege of playing Mario Aces at work

Tennis has been on my mind recently. Partially, because one of my colleagues talks about the Wimbledon in the doctor's lounge to all of us during our breaks, as if it were some local cultural tradition (it is not, unless you are from the 1%) and then tells us all about player X or Y's personal lives, as if they are people we have known our whole lives, then she makes us watch the morning replays on the TV installed there. It is....pain.

It has also been on my mind because coincidentally, one of our new trainees has been bringing his Nintendo Switch and plays it during his breaks (which for us, are many and frequent, thankfully). Everyone has started calling him “kiddo”, because who plays video games in a hospital? He is just a nice, harmless guy who noticed me watching him play and, in front of our other colleagues, asked me if I wanted to join him. I realized if I said yes, I too would become known as “kiddo #2”.

But then I have always been content to go my own way, and so I said yes, admittedly it also had to do with the fact that quite a few of my colleagues think I am already strange for using Mastodon and watching anime (the former is a far bigger checkmark against me, oddly enough). I wonder what nickname I would get if they find out I keep a notepad file of untranslated games I would like to play someday.

Funnily, after the incident, one of my colleagues chided me “I didn't know you were so childish too.” It saddens me to see such narrow minded judgement. I always thought I had a positive image, as a techie of sorts, because almost everyone comes to me to find out what's wrong with their laptops, but maybe I'm viewed as nothing more than the most convenient troubleshooter they have access to, probably.

Anyways, after checking out a few games, I found Mario Tennis Aces on there, and we played. One of our colleagues even made a tiktok of us “goofs” where we were flailing around the joycons, thankfully it did not gain any traction. Mario Aces is more like a fighting game in the vehicle of Tennis, if that makes sense. There are lots of different mechanics at play, every character has enough idiosyncrasies to make them somebody's favorite. Were it not already so well known and written about, this article would be just that, me gushing over Mario Aces. But to be brief, I am a fighting game head, I love fighting games, and Mario Aces scratches that exact itch. I have tried Virtua Tennis too, as well as Top Spin (there may be another article on those, someday) but trust me when I say, Mario Aces is different.

Alas, Mario Aces has been gushed about far too much, and I do not personally own a Switch to play it as much as I would desire. And so, I began a journey. I was already familiar with the Gameboy titles, and I did not simply want to reexperience those.

So I did what any unreasonable man would do, and played every tennis game on the original PlayStation. It will surprise you to know, outside of one specific series, they were all horrible. Actua Tennis, Tennis Arena, Roland Garros French Open and many more. I even tried the Prince of Tennis game, which has some very interesting ideas, being a tennis strategy game, but is ruined by one simple fact, the game has zero flow, none at all.

Konami's Prince of Tennis, PSX

Briefly, there's a grid, though you don't move around on it, your player does so automatically, the arrows indicate where the ball will land, then you have a very short time window in which to react and move a marker/cursor to where you want to hit the ball. There's a very detailed Tennis Academy too, that teaches you about the ins and outs of say, net-play, or even basics like bringing someone in closer so you can lob them. It's a shame it hasn't been translated, because the academy contains some great nuggets of information, but the game overall is pretty awful, yet it remains interesting.

Anyways, let's talk about the main focus of the article, the only good series on the PSX, Namco's Smash Court.

Part 2: Smash Court, a Mario Tennis for the rest of us

I did not live the PS1 era, I started gaming during the PS2 era, playing older titles, mostly PS1 and SNES via emulation. But I can empathize with someone who did, imagining for a second someone who really wants to play Mario Tennis but cannot, in this case it would be Mario Tennis 64, a game with surprisingly satisfying ball physics, interesting characters with their own quirks and lots of ways to have fun.

But supposing that someone had a PS1, and bought every Tennis game? And almost all of them turned out to be mediocre? That's how sad things were, and it is in this context that one begins to understand just what made Virtua Tennis so famous.

What's not as well known, is Namco had a really good Tennis series on the PS1. Smash Court – the successor to their lesser known SNES Tennis game, Smash Tennis, also a fun title in its own right. Smash Tennis itself is linked to four other games, Namco's World Court arcade game (and its sequel) as well as Namco's Family Tennis for the Famicom, and it's Super Famicom remake titled Super Family Tennis. In other words, Smash Court has quite the storied pedigree, being essentially their 6th game.

Namco's World Court.

The second Smash Court game was localized as Anna Kournikova's Smash Court Tennis. Get past the ugly graphics and you will find a surprisingly fun tennis game, though not one with as much depth or as many things to do, admittedly. Even today, you can have a good time, either playing the PAL version through an emulator setting it to 60 Hz, or the Japanese version (I myself have confirmed the PAL version is slower than intended, and it hurts the game feel a little)

Heihachi Mishima is not dead. He just got fed up of fighting, and went to play Tennis instead.

If that other guy looks familiar, it's because he is. That's Eddy Gordo, every button masher's best friend.

The ball physics is fun here, and it's extremely easy to get into. Whilst an arcade game at its core, positioning matters, placement matters, and you can't play stupidly and get away with it, like say in Virtua Tennis. I've had tighter games here than in VT, funnily enough, though one can obviously argue which one feels better, and certainly, VT takes the cake there, this game can have awkward hitboxes sometimes, besides the obviously rougher feel but it is also classic Namco at its finest, the stages have the sort of aesthetic one would expect from their fighting games, and soundtracks to match. Most of the stages ooze personality, and the ones that don't still have catchy tunes. My only issue with the game is how awkward the power shot feels, due to the time it takes. That's something they fixed in Smash Court 3, where it charges up very quickly making it viable, but still keeping the risk of using it intact.

Pakistan, circa 2030. The elite have blocked the roads so they can play some tennis.

This game is pretty much a celebration of all things Namco, you'll find art that pays respect to their older titles, easter eggs in stages, and of course, characters. Besides being a silky smooth, arcade quality tennis game that carries Namco's signature sense of style, it's also chock full of characters from their other games.

Police commissioner Pac Man got word that some people were playing Tennis on his roads, of course he also had to join in, it was his civic duty. Damn the people and their obligations.

Also included in the roster is Yoshimitsu, again from Tekken 3. Reiko Nagase from Ridge Racer, and Richard and Sherudo from Time Crisis also make an appearance.

A brief overview

Smash Court is, all in all, a game that can be quite fun for a few hours, though more multiplayer inclined. That doesn't mean you can't enjoy a good game versus the AI, but like many other titles, the lack of SP content is apparent. You do have some incentive, winning tournaments unlocks new characters, but I feel the entire process takes too long, and the characters you want are towards the tail end, like 4th win of tournament X and so on. There's also gear for you to unlock in Grand Slams.

The series found itself being reinvented on the PS2, as a more serious arcade/sim hybrid, a middle ground between Virtua Tennis's satisfying arcade gameplay and Top Spin's more simulation oriented gameplay, keeping Namco's trademark high quality arcade style feel and gamesense.

But what became of the original Smash Court style games? Well, they made one last title, and it did not get localized. I do not mean Smash Court 3 for the PS1, but Family Tennis Advance for the GBA, the last classic arcade style Smash Court game.

Family Tennis Advance is very underrated, it's basically Smash Court 4 (the original style) on the GBA, it plays as you'd expect and while barren on content, it is supremely enjoyable. Besides Pacman, you will also find Klonoa, Rick from Splatterhouse, Valkyrie and many other lesser known classic Namco characters. Along with some fun stages.

One stage has a gimmick, a car may pass every now and then

Well, that's about it for Smash Court, or at least what I have to say about it.

Sayonara! And remember, it's not Tennis without Heihachi.

Recently, I have been looking into the inflation crisis of my country, and my deepest gratitude to my old school fellow for his patience and succinct explanations of everything as well as valuable data. He currently works in the office of the Accountant General of our province doing audits and the like – that province is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, formerly the Northwestern Frontier. A province that is more like Afghanistan, in contrast to our other provinces. Punjab and Sindh, for instance, are far closer to India, both in culture, language, ethnically and so on. Then we have Balochistan which is perhaps even more of a separatist entity, their culture being strongly Iranic. This digression is merely to paint a picture of how diverse Pakistan is, essentially it is at least 4 major countries in one, and KP, formerly, NWFP has been historically wronged and deprived of much needed development, with funds going to other places, whilst our dams are the most valuable source of electricity for the nation.

Anyways, as for our inflation, it has been a thing since 1971, when Bangladesh split from Pakistan – formerly we were two, West (where I am) and East Pakistan (Bangladesh). As for their splitting, it is most justified and I am happy for them, but it would be too lengthy to go into here. We have been saddled with corruption, inefficiency and incompetence, and plain ineptitude for multiple decades. It started with the stupidity of nationalizing all the industries, and further corruption meant this nation has been in perpetual beggary since then. Foreign investors do not want to invest a penny here, and rightly so. The constant meddling of the (Men in Green, shall we say) in overthrowing governments for their own reasons make this a most volatile place to invest, would you put your money in a bank that was constantly changing all its employees, and you had to deal with a different manager and different biometric systems every time? Most of our bureaucrats are dinosaurs and they do not understand the first thing about doing business or making things convenient for the general public, every process here is a bureaucratic nightmare, perhaps by design to create a false sense of need for these bureaucrats but that would be giving these dinosaurs too much credit. In fact, they are too old and too out of touch.

And speaking of dinosaurs, one would be remiss to leave out our biggest dinosaurs (my sincerest thanks to the most kind Men in Green for giving him so many chances to utterly ruin this nation, despite being its so called custodians, lol)

See those two guys in the middle? Orange and blue? In just one term, both of them doubled our national debt, just like that. And guess whose parties are in charge again, against the will of the people, an undemocratic government. These two guys (insert roaring applause from my non-existent audience here)

Still, at least the man in orange was dealing with crazy amounts of terrorism, and his finance man kept our economy relatively stable in tumultuous times, until the famous Bin Laden debacle, where he was found in a house suspiciously close to an academy where they train men to become the next generation of the “Men in Green” so they too can play golf and lounge around talking about real estate, that's what all Men in Green are born to do, after all.

Mr Baldilocks, in blue on the other hand, is exemplary. Suppose there was a man who you gave your money to, to invest. He lost it all once. Fair, you'll never trust him again. But you're not the Men in Green, and they love him. They gave him the keys to the bank again, and he defaulted the nation again. Screw you and your money, they don't care.

And then, you couldn't bring him back a third time because you removed him to bring your other project to the fore, so you bring his brother instead, and his daughter who is about as qualified for CM as Team Rocket is to teach an Ethics course.

So, Mr Baldilocks' party defaulted the nation twice, and his party has been brought back again for a 3rd time, by force.

“If you are Pakistani, screw you and your vote” – Not me, but the Men in Green say this (they literally burned them and flipped the results anyway)

There's something special about how the Men in Green play golf and lounge around, talking about how they are going to bring an agrarian revolution and save the economy. This is akin to an insane man setting your house on fire while you are at work, and when you return he offers you a cigarette, and tells you “Don't worry, things will be okay, we will build better houses”

Then he leaves you with a cardboard box and a paper that says I.O.U (He owes you one making you disappear for good)

Of course, the Men in Green and the well off also love to tell people that they are being dramatic, and overreacting, and being thankless, and many other things. A common defense given is: It was always this bad, Pakistan was always poor and inflation was always a thing. This, of course, is classic gaslighting, and one that the stats disagree with. As this Consumer Price Index chart shows (and below, I will explain why even this number is actually a cooked underestimate, on the ground things are even worse) 2023 and 2024 are the worst years in Pakistan's economic history when it comes to inflation in the last 43 years.

Worse than almost every one of its 77 year history, in fact the only other time Pakistan had inflation like this, was when it split in two, and Bangladesh went its own way. The next 2 years had similar figures, but that was in the midst of a war, and a loss of various valuable industries. This time, there is no war, only a cavalcade of buffoons running the country.

Of course, the nation has not grown as expected, either. Pakistan always cycles between periods of artificial (cooked) growth – the booms – and the bust, negative growth or contraction. Pakistan has been struggling with boom-and-bust cycles for decades, leading to 22 IMF bailouts since 1958. Currently, the IMF is the fifth-largest debtor, owing $6.28 billion as of July 11, according to the lender's data.

Things are so bad, that almost everyone that can, is trying to leave. Yours truly is stuck here till the end sadly, perhaps he will be buried a ways down the road someday, if he is not taken by a flood, and perhaps many years later his grave will also become part of one of their golf courses, as is the way. When that happens, I will be sure to haunt them.

Addressing the earlier point about inflation figures being cooked, one of my rant loving colleagues revealed that our government's statistics bureau measures inflation by:

1. Calculating utility prices based on the lowest tariff, which is subsidized for electricity and gas. Note that due to consumption, no one is ever billed on the lowest tariff, they will almost certainly exceed it.

2. Prices of essential items are taken from Utility Stores, where the government subsidizes many products. Even if the products are unavailable, not of passable quality or even expired. Indeed, expired.

So when you read “Inflation went up so and so or down so and so” it is all data fudging done to make the really bad numbers look just a little more acceptable, most data from Pakistan is worthless, dishonest, cooked.

Now, the funny thing about all this poverty? Pakistan's problem is easily reduced significantly, if not solved, if one were to implement real estate taxation reforms. In this case, there is a very simple treatment, but this treatment would hurt the Men in Green's real business, their main source of income, the real estate market that is essentially a giant black hole for money laundering. The cartels and those of influence do not like being taxed, but even they cannot avoid it occasionally. The Men in Green, on the other hand, hold the leash. They can.

Now imagine a poor nation where the minimum legal wage isn't even paid to most of its people, your average guard working at a Government Hospital (which should be obligated to pay this, no?) makes 15,000 Rupees when the so called minimum is 32000. That's $54 a month, to make ends meet he does two shifts, one with my hospital at night and the other at the Gov Hospital during the day. Altogether, he makes $120. After bills, he is left with barely nothing, and we doctors often donate to these guards to help cover the rest. As a side note, one of our guards was suffering cancer quietly, he decided to use up what remained of his body (he had Stage 4 CA, we did not know) to work 3 shifts and never even sought treatment after his diagnosis.

To quote my old blog “It was only today I learned he had Stage 4 cancer, and he did not choose to seek treatment for it. The time he did spend here, he knew his diagnosis, but he wished to earn whatever paltry money he could for his family, rather than spend time getting treated.” Today in this context was well after his demise, sadly, may he be happy in heaven. I had been rather blunt about the outcomes of Stage 4, not knowing he had it, my apologies again.

The full article is here Link to my blog

This is mainly to drive home how desperate people are. Rather than implementing reforms on real estate (their piggy bank) and uplifting the nation, they are kicking more people into poverty daily.

To quote: “The poverty in Pakistan increased within one year from 34.2% to 39.4% with 12.5 million more people falling below the poverty line of $3.65 per day income level, according to the World Bank. About 95 million Pakistanis now live in poverty.”

Imagine so many more people being pushed below, that is Pakistan for you, or rather the Men in Green.

Source

This is from last year. Things are even worse now.

Note how the line is $3.65 per day, now we are at the really important stuff. 39.4% people were there in 2023, there are even more now, but let us stay with 39.4 for argument's sake. Have you ever worried about the cost of one liter of milk? If you have, you are now in the right mindset. If you haven't, picture it, you're the average Pakistani, part of the 39.4%, your daily wage is less than $3.65 (which is now more like $3 due to devaluation)

Ultra-high temperature, or UHT, milk now costs 370 rupees ($1.33) a liter in supermarkets in Karachi (one of our biggest cities). In Peshawar, where I am for my training, it is going for 390 PKR ($1.40). That compares with $1.29 in Amsterdam, $1.23 in Paris, and $1.08 in Melbourne, according to data collected by Bloomberg. An 18% tax was applied to packaged milk as part of taxation changes approved in the national budget last week. Previously, it was tax-exempt. Source: Bloomberg

Now imagine you make less than $3.65, and your family needs milk. No, people have just stopped buying it, what else will they do? That, by the way is milk. Similar things have happened to almost every food staple. All this in the midst of a world record heat wave, when basic essentials and utilities are now more expensive than ever.

Life is unlivable, government hospitals are full of those afflicted by poverty who ended their life, this gets even darker when one realizes Islam has explicitly forbidden it, for a Pakistani to take his life (and most are brainwashed by Islam to a radical extent, such that they would suffer rather than end it) things must be dire. Data for suicide rates here is lower than the ground reality, due to various reasons. Sometimes, families ask those in Government Hospitals to write “Heart Failure” or something similar in the medicolegal certificate (should they need one, many don't) because if people find out there was a suicide, they will not attend your funeral. Indeed, I have even seen cases where grieving mothers cried as fathers refused to hold a funeral, but some kind uncle or cousin took the initiative.

That is without even considering the case of the laawaris, the word being an Urdu one meaning one without an owner (a family, essentially). Bodies of such people who have no one end up in hospitals, often with no ID, and no one cares to determine how they died, they are just......discarded and given a funeral. It is a sad state of affairs, indeed many of these cases show clear signs of suicide, but again, not reported.

As for what's documented, it too is disturbing The News: Rise in suicide by youth Dawn News: Spike in suicides

“Shockingly, Pakistan is ranked 72nd globally, with a suicide mortality rate of 9.8 per 100,000 population. What is even more concerning is the year-on-year increase in the suicide mortality rate. According to the World Health Organi-sation (WHO), there were 7.3 suicides per 100,000 in 2019, which rose to 8.9 in 2020, and 9.8 in 2022.”

The epidemic is serious enough that the government was forced to reconsider its stance and decriminalize suicide – Dawn News due to the hard work of the Pakistani Psychiatric Society.

Also from the article: “The concerning rise of ‘kala pathar (black stone) poisoning’, caused by paraphenylenediamine, in districts like Rahim Yar Khan and Sahiwal is a significant public health issue, with a high mortality rate of 50.5pc among rural women.” Rural women have found their own ways of ending it, sadly.

Of course, when the health budget, educational budget and all other developmental spending is slashed for a defense budget for the Men in Green, what else can one expect?

The salaried class is protesting being squeezed to death in a fruitless peaceful protest. We will be squeezed until nothing remains, sadly. I myself am a doctor and only dare eat twice a day, and the meals are nothing special, though admittedly am underpaid due to my unique training circumstances.

The petrol mafia and the flour mafia on the other hand have stopped their supplying, which will have more results. They refuse to pay the prescribed taxes to the government, and they will get away with it. After all, who will pay for the politicians and their 1000 Liters of free petrol, their cars, their houses, their electric and gas bills? Not The Men In Green, nor the seths (landowners, business moguls)

No, it's the salaried class.

My most learned friend at the Accountant General's office (he will be going to greener pastures soon, good luck my friend) is convinced, as are most of our finance people, that this economy is dead. What is happening now is simply the looting of a corpse.

But hey, gotta play golf, amirite? After all, golf does depict the ultimate fate of this nation.

Credits:

1. My learned auditor friend for formulating most of the financial stuff, and explaining it all to me very patiently. I, like most Pakistanis from rural areas, was a financial illiterate until our economy crashed. I didn't know the ins and outs of our economy, or its problems, only that our elite lived egregiously subsidized lives.

2. My colleague whose insights into the data manipulation of the government were quite valuable, her knowledge of our political landscape and its history is almost professorial, I guess it is to be expected from the daughter of a bureaucrat family, that she is still acting like one even in a hospital, hahah. Not that she will ever read this, but you are wasting your time on Medicine, go be a professor of Politics :P

3. Forrest, who will not hand over my IP to the Men in Green if they ever find this article (I hope he won't, and hopefully they don't find it to begin with) and who should remember that the Men in Green are powerless to threaten him, and all such emails should be marked as spam, or perhaps replied to with memes.