A neighbour is a senior politician and though one notorious for cutting his sail to the wind, is wanted by the authorities in the current situation.
All the streets around our house are barricaded and full of very miserable policemen (one told me, plaintively, that he wished it would all end as he was sick of it and his legs were hurting – Pakistani policemen like to rest their bellies in the police station). There are no protestors as there were around Imran Khan’s house, but simply to get from our house to the end of the street you have to cross two police barricades, and at each one (within sight of each other and within sight of our front door) be searched, give your name, address, phone number, ID card number, father’s name and reason for wanting to pass, and to recite the first three digits of your car’s license plate which, of course, I never know by heart, so I just tell them to check for themselves.
All this was yesterday when we went on a short visit to a relative in one of the new bits of Defence that are still well outside my mental geography of the city. On the way back we stopped at a mall which was the only place to find homewares from a particular brand, there to get a couple of table mats and a new bedcover for my father. Along the way I popped into a venerable leather shop and my father bought me a new wallet which I initially felt bad about, but he was so pleased at giving me a gift that I let him.
I hope matters are quickly resolved with this politician, not only for the sake of the fat fed-up policeman, but also because it is quite disruptive. Such is this new age where one is questioned twice over on the way home and must watch what one says or writes.
Today is the second round of the Turkish presidential election bringing with a mix of resignation tinged with hope in the profoundly unlikely.