Invisible Strings in The Puppet Show

Most of us have gone to a puppet show and watched those characters, they come in all shapes and sizes each different from the other but one thing that is common to all of them is the string attached to them that dictates what they will do and when! A slight adjustment of lighting and the background and even that string disappears and they seem to be doing everything by their own free will.

Shakespeare said "this world is a stage and we are all actors". With all due respect to that talented man, may be he didn't look closely enough. This world is a stage but we all are not actors we are all but mere puppets! with invisible strings attached.Look around you the greatest puppet show on earth is unfolding before your very eyes and you may even be a part of it.

The strange thing is that at the end of these strings there is no puppeteer! Our actions are dictated by our emotions,affiliations, affection, hatred and ambitions. Without even knowing it, it is us who are pulling our own strings. Yes there is a Puppeteer who's at the helm of all the strings attached to us but it seems some control has been passed down to us.

We move n dance to the tune of the music composed by our own will without even knowing it. An amalgam of feelings, experiences and our physical and spiritual needs forms the invisible string attached to every puppet.Those who let this force swing their pendulum of life remain puppets tied to the invisible string.

If i had 24 hours hours to live how would i spend them....

this is an essay i entered in a competition its mostly fictional..how i would really spend them well i'll tell that some other time......

Saturday night, I’m walking home… the moon is shining with all its glory and the cool breeze is making the night just perfect! The small pieces of cloud moving here and there remind me that we are all in a journey always in a state of transition. Just as I take out my cell phone to call a friend, a message pops up, it’s from somebody I don’t know but it contains strange information for me, it says that when the clock strikes midnight I would have exactly 24 hours to live, I laugh n walk on home. There was package at the door waiting for me I opened it and it contained the same news, and just then the phone rang and the unknown caller tells me the same thing. So now even I start thinking that well all this may be true! Now its 24 and something hours to the end! I start thinking if I indeed have just 24 hours to live how I would spend them.

My plans don’t include bringing everlasting peace to the world like a miss universe winner’s speech, neither could I invent a miracle drug to rid the world of disease nor I can find a way to bring consistency to Pakistan cricket team, I leave these tasks to superman for his last 24 hours.

Now I have two ways of spending these moments to lock myself in a virtual cage of sorrow and grief and think why me and then just die like a loser but that’s just not me! Lets see firstly I would not let anyone linked to me know about it because it’s the end of the line for me not them why should I make these last 24 hours sad for them why not spend them like a normal day rather live every moment to the fullest because that’s all I’ve got left. So I just set up a nice bar BQ fire and get to work and enjoy a nice meal under the moonlit night. Then I go to a store and buy a few post cards for some very special people in my life and a nice gift for my best friend and the most important person in my life, by the time I’m done with all that the clock strikes 12 and the countdown has begun. Now I write those cards and pack the gift which I’ll post in the morning and trusting the great postal system of ours I know it would take at least a few days for these gifts to reach them and so I would be reason to make them smile even after I’m long gone! After this I turn on the music and Tina Sani and Nayyara Noor with their usual accomplice Faiz Ahmad Faiz take me on a journey, I close my eyes and my life unfolds before me like an epic only this time I’m in the lead role.

I wake up the next day I had a fulfilling sleep, and I think when all the fear is taken away how much peace there is to life! Now I enjoy my favorite breakfast of fried eggs with parathas and a cup of tea. Then I take out the car and drop the cards and the gift at the post office, get the tank filled up and go for a drive moving through the cities and head towards the countryside I stop near a field and the yellow blossoms announcing the arrival of spring I just sit there and watch the birds flying the sun shining and the breeze containing the scent of my land and then as the sun begins to set and the birds fly back to their nests I decide it is time for me to return to my abode. When I get back home its almost dark and a few hours to go, for the first time I start to think what would happen to the people whom I meat everyday for them I would be a memory may be a reason to smile and that would be enough for me! But for the few very few people for whom I’m a part of their lives their dreams what would happen to them, I close my eyes and pray to the Almighty not to give me more time but to give them more strength, the will to live on and the courage to carry on their lives and be happy, I trust the Almighty will take care of them and that’s the only prayer and request that I have.

I have a nice dinner then go to my room and write a note about how I have spent these 24 hours and by the time I finish its almost 11:50 PM, just 10 minutes to go. I smile sit on my chair and close my eyes once again I pray for the special people in my life, for my friends, I’m not afraid to go I’m just worried about those special people but then I remember a line I read somewhere,

“Chalo k Mout sey Kartey hain Aghaz-e-Mohabbat...... Zinda Rahe tou Bicharney ka Dar sa laga Rahe Ga”

And then the clock strikes midnight!!