Pakistan should be renamed

ADVISE-ISTAN.

It is a haven of all kinds of advisers. And the best part of it is, yes, they're absolutely free and even better, given, no, stuffed and shoved down your throat, even when you make it candidly very clear that you'd have none of them. People, in this country are all professional advisers, they give advise on medical issues randomly and very irresponsibly, combine this deathly scenario with the availability of all medicines without a prescription to the general read uneducated public. Medicines, sometimes, very potent and dangerous drugs are being self-prescibed on the advise of another, or the person selling the medicines who aren't certified medical practioners.

Then there are the religious advisers who, without any invitation on your part, self-assign themselves the role of religious and moral keepers of others at large. To be a credible adviser on religious issues, all one has to do is to look the part - long scraggly beard and a brown patch on the forehead, with pants high up the ankles at the time of the daily prayers, and of course Arabic interjections at every 5 minute intervals. Anyone with the above credentials is the keeper of the holy seal and is out to tell every next person how he is going to hell! How we should pray, how he should drink water, how he must dress; all these are important topics and far more debated upon than the essence of what religion, any religion, is actually conveying.

Now, the trend has moved on to 'spiritualism' which is the new found mantra of the people, every other person who has read one and half book on spirituality (read Deepak Chopra, Paulo Cohelo, Mitch Albom) considers himself an expert and will render free advice to all and sundry on how to relax, what to eat, how not to stress and so on.

A major advise panel is 'how to raise your children.' Forget what mess their own kids are, any person who has one or more children thinks himself kin to Dr. Spock himself. He will tell us what is good for our kids, how we are doing a bad job in raising them, how we ought to handle every situation that he thinks we have very recently mishandled. This is my pet peeve - I think parenting is one of the hardest jobs in the world, and it comes without any set of instructions or manuals. Every parent through trial and error comes to formulate a way to raise his kids, then rolls in the advise-brigade and one is shell-shocked with snippets and free tips on what to do with your children at each and every step of the way.

Then there are women who think they are best at everything and thus armed with this knowledge and talent set out to sort everyone out. They will tell you how to keep your house, how to be a good manager and home maker, how to deal with the in laws and of course what to do with your husband.

In a land of advisers, where people are experts at almost everything under the sun and in addition to this, helpful and large-hearted enough to dole out all this wonderful information and advise for free at all times, the people in general are still managing to goof up and that too in a royal fashion.