Pakistani girls hold a national flag in front of the mausoleum of founding father Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah during Independence Day celebrations in Karachi on Wednesday. Rizwan Tabassum/AFP

By Agha Riaz

Under the leadership of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, we have got the precious gift from Almighty God in the shape of Pakistan as a country. It was a Thursday and he chose 14th day of the August as the date of the ceremony of power transfer to the independent country, Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The day of independence was Ramadan 27, the holy month of Islamic calendar.

I remember once my cousin told me: “there is no country like Pakistan in the world.”

By profession he is a doctor, thoroughly gentleman and one unique habit that he put 24/7 throughout year a Pakistani-flag-badge on his shirt at the upper side of heart. That gives him some kind of satisfaction.

“Is it a dialogue from a proud Pakistani or something that I don’t know,” I replied.

He said: “I am talking about its geographic position. Pakistan occupies 796,095km area.”

“Go on, please,” I responded.

Picture shown is for illustrative purposes only.

“The interesting point is that we are enjoying all season (Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn) in the 36^th in the list of the world’s sovereign states and their dependent territories by area, ranked by total area as per the United Nations Statistics Division data. In summer when people of Jacobabad, the city the south eastern part of Sindh province and one of the hottest cities of the country, bear the temperature about 52ºC and at the same time one can find OºC in our Northern parts, Gilgit-Baltistan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.”

He continued: “All type of fruits, dry fruits (some of them are the best in the world) and vegetables. Best of quality of rice, wheat, pulses, corn, sunflower and most important that adds sweetness in our life ‘sugarcane.’”

“Well, I am coming to sweet smell plants in our country. There are more than 100 hundred types of flowers cultivate especially the wide rage of roses gardens. Do you know that more than 10 types and colours of roses? We are cultivating different species all widely grown for their beauty and fragrance and also some rose plants range in size form compact, miniature.”

After a small pause he started: “Now some key points of our country’s geographical position. As you know that Asia is the most populist continent in the world. Its top two main heavy weights China (borders in the north) and India (to the east) are our neighbouring countries. Although they are also share their borders but as for trade they are bound to take route via Pakistan to the other parts of the Asian countries.”

While taking a deep breath I said: “Only we need a better, sensible, honest and loyal leadership who take us on right path of prosperity like Qaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.