Hello Mr. Jinnah,
I hope you are doing fine up there. I am sure your birthday party on the other side was a wild one, with all those old timers gathering for a shot or two.
Today, on the day of your birthday, I am thinking about presenting you a gift for the first time. The gift is nothing more but a write up on condition of the country and its people.
I am just an anonymous person among the 180+ million people living in this country – Pakistan – the land of the pure. Like the majority the inhabitants of this country, I have to go to work all day to earn myself a decent living. Like the most of its people, i am also frustrated with the life that I am living – the life of delusion and fear. But i have got no one else to blame but myself, because all this time i have closed my eyes from one thing called reality. My life revolves around my computer and my music and p*rn collection. On hearing news of daily misery about poverty, fucked up economy, terrorism, lack of freedom, drone attacks, corruption etc. I just curse the TV and change the channel to a more ‘entertaining’ item. Never have i imagined that my world was falling apart before I even had a chance to buy a car – not to mention getting married, having kids, and all those other things you want to get done, as a bare minimum, before the world ends.
This very much sums up not just my own condition but of a common man in this country. Yeah the same common man who thought that the product you were selling will bring him salvation only to find out years later that the side-effects were far more drastic than initially believed. It is the same common man who dies everyday on the streets, in the markets in the mosques while trying to live the dream which you and your peers saw. So, is this the Pakistan you dreamed of? The country ruled by feudal lords and industrialists while at the same time owned by bearded extremists who would kill thousands just so that their fear could remain active within the hearts of this common man.
Indeed this country has become a very hostile country for the common man. Every morning, he turns on the TV with violently beating heart just to ensure that a military coup has not taken place or to ensure that the terror attack counter is still at the same figure where it was by the time he went to sleep. While leaving for work, he takes one good long look at the place of his dwelling as something inside his heart tells him that he might not be coming back alive to see it. The same person sees every other stranger as a possible terrorist and avoids mingling with them. The idea of going to mosque for him has become as suicidal as the thoughts occurring in the mind of a terrorist who plans to blow up a mosque. The only sense of happiness a common man gets from Pakistan is feeling he gets once he leaves the country, possibly for good.
This is what that has become of the ‘Islamic Republic’ that you never intended Pakistan to become. What i have learnt from various sources is that you were an active secular person and intended to see this country going in the same direction. But look at it now, at one part we see that a bunch of barbarians who yell ‘Allah Akbar’ and conduct self-righteous act of genocide while on the other side, the affected ones think its the God’s fault not to save them – eventually giving rise to the no. of anti-theists who are ready to blame their birth on the divine authority.
While the country celebrates yet another birthday of yours, I want to ask you whether you were ever remorseful over what has been done to your vision? Do you ever feel the guilt up there for not creating a successor who could have taken your vision any forward rather than handing over the authority to incompetent people who in their whole lives were slaves and nothing else. So, Mr. Jinnah! Where is the dream that the elders talk about? I admit that that dream was to be fulfilled by us, our predecessors and successors but we, in our laziness and perhaps incompetency have buried your vision the same white marble tomb that is guarded by the military all the time.
Happy birthday, once again.
Burhan: Rants and Beyond... 