To elaborate further, AJM happens when you fall short of something by such a minor margin that disappointment magnifies manifold as opposed to the heartbreak one would face when one didn’t have a chance.
Now AJM has happened too many times in history and examples for the same can be found even if one doesn’t want to look. It happened in 1999 at the Camp Nou to all Bayern München fans. It happened to Indian cricket supporters in 1986 at the Australasia cup against Pakistan when Javed Miandad hit a six off the last ball, thereby causing extreme grief among all those in our country who had commenced the celebrations a few minutes prematurely.
AJM usually happens due to bad luck and it happens to everyone in general. However what I am about to illustrate here is the unusual case where someone has experienced so much luck that it can only be termed as reverse AJM.
Asif Ali Zardari, until 1987 was a nobody. He was some arbit guy who’s father was a rich businessman in the Pakistani province of Sindh, and he rose to fame and media attention due to his wife who unlike her good-for-nothing husband had graduated from Oxford, no less. Why she settled for Zardari (who btw hasn’t graduated and hence is also ineligible for Pakistan’s National Assembly) when she could’ve had any guy in Pakistan is a conundrum that’s caused many a logically sane person to scratch his head in bewilderment.
Notice I didn’t say ‘his/her’ head, because I’m sure women know the answer. Its a question that has crossed the minds of many men since times immemorial – ‘What is that cute/smart/stud woman doing with a hideous/dumb/loser guy like that?’. We digress, as usual.
Benazir’s legacy and her inclination towards active politics meant that Mr.Zardari had to come to terms with being in the limelight by association and not entirely due to his own efforts, though his inolvements in many a scandal did ensure that he got his 15 minutes on a more than regular basis.
In what can be termed as a blatant means of getting political mileage, Mr.Zardari even went to the extent of adding Bhutto in his son’s name, a move that is quite unusual in a non-matriarchal setup.
Now this very gentleman is the President of the neighbouring country and that too at a time when Pakistan is facing an acute economic crisis, internal strife due to issues over alignment / non-alignment with the US, the perpetually ignited Kashmir issue as well as the various other factions intent on blowing each other to bits if they can’t cross the border to blow us Indians to bits.
This is the exact opposite of an AJM situation, because our man has just been lucky circumstantially in a manner that very few individuals in history ever have. God help us all, seriously.
Edit: Based on news reports of how shamelessly Zardari put blade on the highly bladeworthy Sarah Palin, my stand has been justified. I am sure that there would’ve been some major uproar had Manmohan Singh said something even remotely similar to what our neighbouring country’s President unleashed.
