Arrey O’ Sama

SOMEWHERE in the mountainous stretches south of Kabul, in the hideout room of tunnel No 89XXXX, some 150 feet below the ground, one very tall, very bearded and very bored individual kicked a pebble which shimmied away into the dark. It hit a pillar and rattled its way down another 200 feet before finally coming to rest.

‘‘Arrey O’Sama,’’ the man whispered to his intimate, everyday self, ‘‘Look at the hole we’ve got ourselves into. Why can’t Allah the Merciful, be more merciful to His chosen one? Here We are, playing the most televised hide-and-seek game in the world, and those infidels cannot even get us.’’ He reached for his diary and sat cross-legged on a colourful Afghan rug, preparing to begin. But the pen didn’t write. He shook it and then noticed the ‘Made in USA’ marking.‘‘Can’t trust the crusader-Zionists with anything,’’ he repeated. He flung it across the room so violently that it brought a couple of factotums rushing to his side. ‘‘O Prince, what is thy command?’’ they cried.‘‘Get me a proper pen,’’ growled Osama....

SUNDAY: Got up. It said 2 p.m. on my indiglo sports watch, not that it matters. In these rabbit warrens, day is night and night is day. Three of the boys came to me very excited, ‘‘O Emir,’’ they said, ‘‘We shot down one helicopter of the infidels, O Emir, we will win this war.’’ I cuffed one of those wolf cubs in the ear and said, ‘‘Enough of this silly talk. The fight against the infidels has only just begun.’’

Didn’t want them to soften up like women and expect victory to fall into their laps. ‘‘Now what do we have for breakfast today?’’ I asked. ‘‘Crackers and strawberry jam, O Emir,’’ they said and loped off to get me some. Must say that the Infidels make rather good strawberry jam and — what’s more — they deliver it to us by airmail. Must thank Georgie boy in a letter, while enclosing blessings from God in the form of a fine, white powder....

MONDAY: Watched CNN. That Donald Rumsfeld looks like Donald Duck, We said. Everybody laughed at Our joke except young Tariq and we shot him in the shin for his slowness. Well, Donald Duck was briefing the infidel press about the helicopter and We kept laughing at his hums and haws. They don’t want to acknowledge that We had shot it down so We told Omar to issue a statement about how We found bits of the helicopter on the Baba Sahib mountain — with traces of blood, I told him to say. That really gets the infidels.

TUESDAY: Got up late again because We had surfed the internet all night for Osama jokes. They’re making money out Our image. Arrey O’Sama, Our face is our brand. We should, rightly, be earning money for every T-shirt that has Us on it. They also have a rather nice sticker saying, ‘OSAMA can you see the bombs bursting in the air?’ Two dollars a piece. T-shirts with Our face sell at ten dollars a piece. It says: ‘Wanted: Dead or Dead’. Rather funny that, We thought. Hey, it’s great to be the most recognised face in the world.

WEDNESDAY: The bombers in the skies sound like the drone of a bluebottle in Our ear. May be We will have to move to the tunnels near Kandahar. Ayman al-Zawahiri came to take Our blood pressure reading and informed Us that they have pinned down Our whereabouts to a 20-by-20 mile area. This info excited Us no end: ‘‘Come get me, Shorty,’’ We yelled at the infidels in the skies. ‘‘And while you are about it, how about airdropping some pizzas — with olives and chicken salami toppings?’’ As you can see, We’re getting kind of bored of the lentil-and-rice routine down here.

THURSDAY: Moved to Tunnel No XYX, Shaft No 333, near the Kandahar region. Didn’t want to leave Zhawar but the boys went on and on about Our safety that We humoured them by moving. Nothing to it. Just had to pack the Kalashnikov, a couple of army fatigues, my laptop and some IBM formatted 3.5 inch MFDs. It’s warmer here and once in a way we get some melons to eat. Otherwise we subsist on US humanitarian daily rations that come in little boxes. They say they’ve dropped 800,000 of them. Good, that should get us through winter.

FRIDAY: We’re bored, bored, bored. Hey, Georgie boy, when are you planning to send in your Green Berets? And while We are about it — remember that pizza order. Make it chicken salami with jalapeno peppers. In the afternoon, the boys brought in some disheartening news. It seems Donald Duck told some newspaper that it would be ‘‘very difficult to capture or kill bin Laden’’.

Arrey O’ Sama, this is barbarism. Here We are waiting for Our pizza order and the Infidels are planning to leave Us out of their plans. Hey, hey, Georgie boy, We asked for chicken salami on our pizza, not for you guys to turn chicken. What happens to Our brand equity? Those 36 books on Us in the press? Those gags about ‘‘non-stop air service to Afghanistan’’? Those rubber masks of Our face? You mean you’re going to leave Us to rot in some rotten old cave? I can’t bear it...

That’s when the most wanted man in the world broke down and wept into his lunch of lentils and rice plus beans in tomato sauce.

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