FOR those who like the offerings to be spiced up, perhaps the catchiest line spoken during the campaign was when Imran Khan described his party’s challenge to the Muslim League-Nawaz as a fight between ‘Noon’ and Junoon.

It had to be this way since Imran was the challenger, the harbinger of change and the leader of the youth.

There were a few other sparkling moments of wit but by and large, it has been more brute force than canny craftsmanship from the stage this time around. The best — or by many estimates the worst — part is going to come a day or two ahead of the vote when the parties will seek to deliver the staggering blow to their rivals. So stock up on nimco and stay connected.

Noon versus junoon did have an effect — as did the PTI slogan targeting the PML-N election symbol of tiger: ‘Dekho dekho kaun aya, Sher ka shikari aya’ (roughly ‘Look, the tiger’s hunter is here’).

I saw a few mild confrontations between the holders of the ‘bat’ and the old proud flaunters of the ‘tiger’s’ instinct in Lahore over the last week. In most of these, the junoon appeared to be bringing the desperate chants out of the League crowd.

The Leaguers were forced to react and sought to drown their opponents by sheer volume. They did not succeed easily. It appeared that the Noon dominance of Punjab which began in 1988 with the help of the Jamaat-i-Islami was being threatened by the ‘good-looking’ version of Jamaat.

The politician in Shahbaz Sharif was unable to suppress the talented bard that exists within him and the chief minister did respond in rhyme to Imran’s noon-junoon refrain. But, even with Shahbaz’s authoritative style, it didn’t quite have the effect of turning back the tsunami. That task had to be assigned to the old institutions that must forever look at all young initiatives with suspicion.

The more Imran depended on the youth, the more likely he was to collect these old institutions at one place in opposition to him, under the banner of those who claim they have been chiselled by experience and know that this was no children’s game they were indulging in. This was an occupational hazard Imran was faced with as he could not afford to remove his emphasis on the young.

Nawaz Sharif was very young — in his 20s — when he broke onto the scene as a politician. But even then he relied heavily on the counsel of elders well placed in the hierarchy, an obedient young man forever willing to follow the direction of his grown-up promoters. Some from that old set of elders still remain relevant, here and abroad, and the PML-N was quite keen to now remind them of his graduation as a reliable choice.

They seem to respond well, and in some telltale commentaries in the Western press, Nawaz was shown to be all set to take power again. These Western certificates were then prominently reproduced by the local media in aid of an impending Nawaz government.

Locally, some other old institutions were also sought to be reactivated against the youth threat. The biradari was one and trader bodies were others. Informal groups of seasoned men, quite often associated with the mosque, were also called upon to make their contribution towards thwarting the youth who are inherently wayward.

A search was launched for evidence of the loose morals of the leader of the young and a few things to be frowned upon were of course found.

However, by and large, the old institutions did not find it as easy as in the past. With all his follies, Imran Khan was a man who belonged here. Both geographically and morally he couldn’t be projected as an outsider as Benazir Bhutto was in the past, even though the talk which described him as a ‘Pathan’ out to introduce chaos in Punjab did appear to have an effect on voters.

By and large, his voters were prepared to stand firm and take the contest to polling day, refusing to be cowed by the old PML-N tactic of overwhelming their opponents.

The PTI had quite intelligently used the March 23 public meeting at the Minar-i-Pakistan, showing off the strong financial side of their campaign. The party was now determined to match the PML-N banner for banner, just as its leader flew around to address jalsas all around. Indeed, in many instances the Sharifs were forced to react to the attacks by the kaptan just as their followers on the street were ruffled by energetic assaults by PTI cadres.

The most amusing of these sights was when Nawaz Sharif was forced to remind his audience about his own brushes with the game, as a counter to Imran’s repeated use of the cricket terminology. “Cricket hum nay bhi khaili hai,” the PML-N leader began his lecture, taking the tone of a wise elder who is about to reveal the secret of life to an inexperienced bunch of greenhorns.

The pitch prepared, he then went on to tell his challengers the crucial difference between indulging in sporting pastimes and achieving a few feats by the people — using a not so bad shikari, madari, Zardari line to work up passions in the crowd. The ever-truthful Shahbaz Sharif, true to his reputation as the clever younger brother, had to go into the technical details of the game. He raked up an old Imran confession to declare that the kaptan was now trying to tamper with an election.

Indeed, Shahbaz was fiercely responded to but as historical evidence goes the most cutting rejoinder came not from a player but a spectator: from the PPP. The footage in which Shahbaz is allegedly dictating orders to a judge did make the chief minister angry — to the entertainment of the spice lovers.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.