23rd March...we need a resolution again!!!

Hey look its 23rd March again... and guess what its on Friday this year and that means a long weekend! WOW what fun. Face it this is how most of us think about this holiday. I am not spoil sport or someone who wants to ruin your fun, its nice that something historical is marked with a holiday and its a time for some relaxation and fun.Yet it is also a time for soul searching and to take a moment to ponder have the objectives been achieved. On 23rd March 1940, a resolution was passed and coupled with an iron will and untiring struggle the resolution became a reality.
Today faced with corruption, hunger, lawlessness and staring down a never ending abyss, we need a new resolution. But before that we have to conquer our fears, our political affiliations, our linguistic borders. Today we have to become one, we have to become the people if not unified by any affiliation. But at least we are united by pain, by agony and by the frustration that is growing with every passing day. We blame these feelings on those that have power and are in the high and mighty positions and yes they are responsible and in time would have to pay their due share, but the truth is that the responsibility of the situation we find ourselves in lies with us, each and every one of us!
But why have we found ourselves in this place where we see nothing but darkness, it is due to fear. We have always sacrificed our liberty, our rights and our freedom because of our fear. But whenever even for brief fleeting moments in our history we have forsaken fear and have believed in ourselves we have achieved things, against the worst of odds and have rescued hope from the very jaws of the abyss that grips us today. Be it the cornered tigers of 1992, be it the single unit that stopped the charge of a whole brigade on BRB in 1965, be it Abdul Sattar Edhi, be it Jinnah, never has fear seemed so powerless than when we have donned the armor of belief and  have decided to devote ourselves to a cause, to an ideal!
Today we need this resolution once more, we need to forsake political sympathies, we need to forsake fear of the high and the mighty, we are the people , we are the power!!! And the sooner we realize it the better. But this power does not mean an utter lawless and destructive approach, it requires a systematic upheaval of the system that was made for slaves and not free men. It requires the devotion to this ideal and a state of constant evolution to make ourselves worthy. It requires unity, faith and discipline.It requires the belief that throughout history to make a difference only a few committed people are required, we need to change ourselves and prepare ourselves. We need a new resolution to make Pakistan free of these blood thirsty animals, who feed on human flesh, dreams and hopes of the people. We need to get rid of them all, from those who clad themselves in a veil of religion to carry out their high handedness to those who use modernity in all its nakedness to relieve ourselves of our rights. We need to rid ourselves from all those who follow a doctrine of necessity, their necessities at the cost of the people.
If you do not rise today, if you do not make a promise, then years from now, you may have a life but you will not have a meaning to it, Just like today you have a holiday but no understanding of its meaning!
Happy Pakistan Day to All of you!

Of roaming ghosts and a semblance of peace within

Today a piece of news brought me to writing this piece, and it said "A year after whole neighborhoods full of people were killed by the Japanese tsunami, rumors of ghosts swirl in Ishinomaki as the city struggles to come to terms with the awful tragedy" 

Yes a whole town flooded with ghosts, ghosts of those who died in that one instant... in that one flash. The reasons complex, intricate yet interesting build up many theories. Some say it is part of the healing process as society comes to grips with this great tragedy. Others link it to the great sense of loss and some say it is due to the sudden and intense nature of the grief suffered by the residents. They fear going to parts of town that were wiped out completely. 

Yet i ask myself, i was not there then why do i grapple with ghosts and fears of my past everyday of my life. These ghosts that roam corners of our heart, haunt our soul where do they come from. No tsunami hit the shores of my soul and wiped out the residents, it was but the normal waves that lash the shores everyday! 

Today those grieved citizens, me and may be some of you also see those ghosts but isn't that because all of us are but in search of that true inner peace. Humanity today strives in a tiring en devour to latch on to some semblance of inner peace. Today don't we search for some semblance of belief with which we can cling. For ages we have credited our success  to our hard work, yet never for a moment we realize that whenever a power has become too strong, a counter balance either by luck or some calamity has always existed. Whether we believe it or not there is a power far greater and stronger than us. 

Yet that semblance of peace will not arrive by virtue of messiahs, it will only arrive when humanity again starts to be humane. When humans are not commodities, numbers or statistics, only then will our souls darkest corners shine, only then will the haunting ghosts peacefully pass on to the other side. We have ceased to be humans, our true cause and soul lost in lust, greed and relations based on need. We have willfully ignored the quality, that was being a human and treating a fellow being as one and have lost our inner peace. Ghosts haunt us, pain drives us to insanity, fears roam free every moment. In the debris of our soul and crumbled abodes of our hearts ghosts roam and we fear to go there. Yet our only solace is to reach deep within a grasp the last shreds of humanity left in us and then sow a new crop, build a new abode. Only then will the souls gain an easy transition to the other side where they will shine like angels, smiling down upon us from the heavens above.

A Joker... A Freak...

Many say that a vibrant smile is an end to many a problem this world faces. Sometimes the smile stems from eternal bliss, and on other occasions it is a facade all painted and glowing hiding all the pain. So choosing to smile and as they say sharing smiles is a choice either those take who are truly happy or those who may be torn from the inside yet  there is enough in them to contain this pain to their heart and not let it pass to the face.
One may choose to be a joker, yes a joker! People choose to be freaks. Because what that gives you is a shell, people rarely are capable enough to see beyond the paint and lights. They can rarely, if ever judge the true cause of a smile! Yet there is a lingering sense that there would be understanding. There would be an eye deep enough to see beyond the many layers you have built around yourself. But becoming a joker, has its own price, a price we pay in terms of credibility. People can feel sympathy for a criminal who steals to feed his children , yet never will they feel sympathy for that joker. Because the criminal and his motive are not hidden yet the joker and his motive are shrouded in mystery.
All who chose to hide behind the persona of a joker or of a freak, know they never will be taken seriously. They don't demand to be taken seriously, they don't demand respect. They don't want anything from you, but never think, that disrespect doesn't hurt them.
There are days when the hurt is so much that the facade is crumbling, They are barely holding it together, it is like a nuclear reaction reaching critical mass. There are days when the silent volcano can take no more and then it just explodes. The lava that might burn everything is a symbol of the pain it had encapsulated in his heart.
When a joker ends his performance and bows down to salute the crowd, in that moment when all of you are clapping and laughing, hidden behind all the gloss and light a tear escapes and rolls down his cheek. Before you even saw it, it was lost and before you even noticed the joker smiled again...
Before you even noticed the freak shouted once again and you dismissed it as cynicism...

Pain of the soul...

They say that the human soul can endure so much more than its mortal abode. Standing on the coast like a rock, lashed by waves day and night... for time beyond measure. The soul can carry on, it can even heal the wounds and scars of the body. Like the sun rises everyday to shine and to illuminate, so does our soul. It steps forward everyday, the temporary moments of doubt and hopelessness are like short spells of cloudiness.
 But what if one day the sun never rose, what if one day the stern rock got shattered to pieces. Everything will be engulfed by the cold darkness. With the guardian on the cost defeated,the angry waves would stroll in land. What if one day the pain got so intense that the soul broke down! Would the mortal abode heal this immortal creation. The soul drenched and cold, stretched so much that it is about to yield. Like the light coming from galaxies far away, the spark that shines just before the darkness will travel the distance, it will reach you! But by then it too will be a glimpse of what was.
 I turn to you, my hands outstretched, my soul weakening, before i am torn to pieces. Heal me, for the pain of the body i can live with, but the pain of the soul, even death cannot cure.

You...

In the cold swept winter night
In all the awe in all my fright
In all my joys for all my plight
In all the pain of every lost fight
O dearest O friend though I can't show
You are the sword for my battles & wings for my flight

My soul, my land

 

My barren soul,my barren land
Woes,tears and blood stained sand
I long and pray for that moment of peace
The first drop of rain on my outstretched hand...

A simple act...

Often the most complex of life's secrets reveal themselves in the most simple of actions and most ordinary of moments. For those, who grasp that moment a life changing event has taken place for all else the clock ticks on and another moment has passed. Upon the creation of man the Almighty gave a part of His soul to, this life form! Which in the words of the Almighty is the best of His creations. What elevated us to this status? In the mortal cage of this body, resides the eternal bird of the soul. This gift of the Almighty has forever immersed good in our core. When the layers are removed, ultimately we were all created with the good in us. That is why a simple act, an act of kindness, an act of sacrifice gives us the peace we all yearn for. The core of our existence is based on good. The search for peace, God and the reason of our existence... life's most complex questions... A simple act that touches a life for a mere moment and if nothing else just brings a smile for a fleeting instance in the infinite expanse of time... is the answer. Feel it, live it... our souls all yearn for that simple act. Yet we choose to look the other way... as it is the a simple act is not so simple to do... for the eternal bird is lost under so many layers of the decaying mortal cage. Set it free once in a while...