GO PAT! GO PAT! GO PAT!

So overjoyed, I'm happy-dancing all over the house! Just read that old friend Imrana Jalal has been nominated for Amnesty International's 2010 Human Rights Defenders Award.

Yayyy! Go Pat! Go Pat! Go Pat!

Oooh, look, Imrana has a profile page in Wikipedia. How cool is that! Obviously, it's going to have to be updated in the very near future. Go Pat! Go Pat! Go Pat!

But what this page doesn't tell you is that Imrana is a true darling and a true beauty, so very like Indo-Fijian pop star Tanita Tikaram in appearance, I wonder if they're related.

And that page definitely doesn't tell you that, oh boy, she is so naughty! And so achingly funny too with an abundance of that wonderful Wodehouse insouciance and a gift for perfectly phrased inappropriate one-liners delivered at exactly the wrong time!

We were at St Joseph's together, many moons ago, and, in among hordes of goodie-two-shoes, to-the-bone-convent-girls, destined to become excellent secretaries and personal assistants, she always stood out because she was always the naughtiest wee thing. I too was a naughty wee thing but I admired the way she went about it, always with courage to burn, a wicked sense of humour, a stubborn refusal to conform or surrender, and always having fun with it. That was her truest gift; the ability to have fun anytime, anyplace, under any pressure, no matter who the people or what the circumstances!

Fiji backstories are never the most accurate because details change in the telling, but I have always believed Imrana's grandfather to have been one of the lawyers sent out from India by Mahatma Gandhi to act against the British Colonial Government in Fiji on behalf of The Girmit. This may or may not be true, but probably IS because it explains a lot; mostly that Imrana comes from a family with a long-standing tradition of resistance to and defiance of authority in defense of the greater good so her future was in her genes and being a Human Rights Advocate was long cast for her.

But we're talking here about Imrana, and even if she were born into a family of anti-authoritarian resisters, she was in a league of her own, mainly because she never resisted in the usual conventional, "worthy", stand-up-and-be-counted way. She resisted in ways that were always naughty and definitely always FUN! Oh boy, the stories I could tell you ... but won't because I don't want to jeopardize her chances of getting this award ...

... but I will tell you that none of them are bad and all are along the lines of her being a very naughty wee thing, and all definitely demonstrate her astonishing ability to become enormously silly at the exact wrong moment and to say exactly the most-wrong thing at exactly the wrong time ... but which seemed to always turn out to be right thing at the right time because everything she did was sooo wrong, folks would immediately talk about it, first in shocked whispers and then with enormous belly-laughs, until - pow! kazam! - before you knew it, it was all Instant Legend, and she'd ultimately win the day.

So this was the Imrana I'd always known. But then, about 10 years ago, in Townsville, Lucy was telling me about how she'd been dragged along to the university to hear a speaker from Fiji, and had come away burning and inspired by a lecture from "An Angel", determined now to become a Human Rights Advocate and spend the rest of her life fighting for justice for all. She went on and on about what this "Angel" had said, and it sounded indeed inspirational, but then Lucy mentioned the speaker's name ...

"PATRICIA???? You're talking about PATRICIA!!! Oh my God!!! She's not an angel; she's a very naughty girl!"

"Her name is IMRANA!!! DON'T call her Patricia! And don't you DARE call Imrana a very naughty girl! Imrana is a SAINT! She's an ANGEL OF GOD doing god's work on earth!"

Mmmm, I could indeed see Imrana I'd known having a great big bellylaugh over that one. However, it did make me wonder if, over the years, she'd changed into a good, solidly-worthy citizen and it did make me rather sad!

However, the very good news is that I caught up with her last time I was in Fiji and was thrilled to see she's still exactly what she'd always been: all Wodehouse insouciance, inappropriate one-liners, hilariously funny and a mind still as naughty as it had ever been.

And to be all this and yet still be an "ANGEL OF GOD doing god's work on earth"? How can you NOT love and adore her!

Ah, Imrana! The Incredible Power of Naughty! Of "Girls Just Want to Have Fun!" The power of insouciance and fabulous one-liners! Of Getting-It-Right by Getting-It-Very-Very-Wrong!  And have you any idea how potent a force this is when bundled up and aimed straight towards injustice and tyranny!

Imrana is indeed in a league of her own and I'm with Lucy here, thinking maybe this is the Tao we should all be following.  Amnesty International obviously thinks so too, and I cannot be more pleased to hear this latest news and, well, the nuns constantly projected "doom and gloom" futures for us both, I'm so very, very pleased to see that, in Imrana's case, they're the ones who got it so very very wrong.

Go Pat! Go Pat! Go Pat!