The Modern Pakistan

           I happened upon this video on YouTube. I watched it and had a mix of feelings.

If you want to watch this video on YouTube, click here!

We are bound to have clashing emotions and views after waching this video. It bares one of the core issues of today's Pakistan that is in the limelight for the past decade or so. We are a varied nation with as many different tastes as any other nation in the World. Some people might think that such rock-n-roll clubs with people dancing around like hippies, girls, half-clad girls to be exact (though there were no really half-clad girls in this video but that is what most of Pakistanis will call them) moving around, music playing at the top of the volume and DJ's dancing and changing songs like they have been doing it since they crossed the threshold into youth and last but not the least some youth saying that this is another side and meaning that a positive side of Pakistan as against bombings, drone attacks and Usama hiding in our country are really good for us. But most of the Pakistanis do not feel at ease in such an atmosphere.

Now there are a few points I want to make here.

First of all it is the thinking and the 'abrasive' side of Pakistan that is portrayed around the World in all the Western media without fail and without any thought to the negative repercussions it might have on the masses in Pakistan. There is so much hatred for Pakistan and Pakistanis. Here I think the problem is that we are compared to Indians. Since India is a strong (or at least so believed and projects the Westers media) country with a good economy, stable democratic institutions and a good number of people that (again this is what is believed generally and most of it is true) are literate. This plays a huge role in changing the mindset of our youth and at least some of them when they see such negativity about their country they tend to think why it is so and act accordingly changing to render themselves as 'good, fun-loving people'.

Second thing is many of the youth especially in big cities are going abroad to some part of Europe or America. When they see this culture there they inevitably are influenced. Some are so much 'impressed' by it that they completely change and do not for a good amount of time look back towards Pakistan. I personally call these youths twisted because in the heat of the moment they even drink. Some of them believe it to be a blessing that they are 'free' to do whatever they want. I personally know a few of such people at least who take great pleasure in clubbing and drinking.

The third but the most important factor in alienating our beloved youth are our corrupt-to-the-core politicians and the filthily rich people. They move around in big cars where the air-conditioner never stops giving cool air in the scorching and blazing temperature during the summer when the ordinary (using this word here since it conveys the meaning otherwise these are the most special people in actuality) people are literally dying of hot weather. Then there is the ever-deteriorating plight of our country where the facilities to lead a good happy life are near to none. Then there are corrupt institutions where the poor has no ear which hears them out and no tongue that speaks in their favour.

The fourth one is the media which at times is evil of all evils because the soaps they show, the morning shows that they happily deliver and the other programmes which are telecast FOR the masses has actually nothing - not an iota- to do with the masses. The values that our media expounds belong to the few filthy rich. They almost have nothing that meets the eye of an ordianry person and makes him say that it is about him.

There is another thing - a confusion- that comes to the fore when we compare other Muslim countries to Pakistan. It seems that they have adopted these ultra-modern ways. Whereas Pakistan is still in confusion as to what to do. This confusion is also preying on our youth.

Personally I did not like the video and what was shown in it.It is hugely troubling. More troubling because my humble eyes see the dreaded future of Pakistan in this video. We are fast losing the youth that believes in the Islamic values of humanity and trust, of hard work and honesty, of looking up to our religious leaders and leading a good life according to their sermons and above all the pure culture of seeking Allah and the love of His grand holy Prophet.

Although all is not doom and gloom. There are religious parties and the leaders who are working at it with all their heart. Among the principal ones I personally see are Da'wat-e Islami, Dr Tahir ul Qadri, the precious Professor Rafique Ahmad Akhtar and many more. These people are working untiringly but things are changing vary fast.

The last thing I want to say that even these people (those dancing their lives away in the video above) seem completely out of touch with the ordinary Pakistanis, they are Pakistanis as well. We cannot segregate these people and say that they do not belong to Pakistan. Though they are utterly modern yet they are as much Pakistanis as we are. So my request to all is that we should respect one another.

A Child unfazed by a Hungry Lioness

I was, like everybody, amazed when I watched this video. I first saw it on BBC and then on Youtube.






It is amazing how this child remains unfazed by the hungry beast. Instead of being afraid he seems to be playing with and enjoying the 'attention' from her. The boy is not too young to see the danger still he just stays in his place and at one point he even tries to have a small conversation with the lioness. This conversation is clearer and 'audible' in the video on BBC.

This incident is one of the many where we realize that the children live mostly on a different plane to the adults. They almost have their own world which if an adult succeeds in penetrating he/she is able to bring up a child who is one in a million in many ways.

Shazia Aapa

Ah.......! I am still unable to digest the fact that she is not in this world now. This makes me think how she would be feeling. Or is there no feeling after death? Which I think is not right since I take the position that the religion does. I know that my worldly mind cannot capture the essence of life up there still I just cannot stop myself thinking again and again. How people 'live' after they have died, after they have left for a completely different system of galaxies. Where there is only love, only beauty, only milky-white beings, only sweetness, only LIFE, only true knowledge, only sacredness, only honey-and-milk rivers and above all only ALLAH!

Wo jahan kesa ho ga jahan Allah ka Arsh maujood hai! (How sacred will be the place where Allah's Arsh is!)

It is so strange that one moment someone is here, in flesh and blood, throbbing with life and zest, laughing, crying, speaking... and the next moment that same person has gone. Gone forever! Disappeared into the distance that is trillions of light years from us earthlings. O God! And there is a time when we have to stand answerable to Him. Thinking of this shatters my being!

Kash k me na hota ya koi janwar hota, ya paharr hota ya jheel hota, ya roshni hota, ya phool hota, ya chahay andhera ya kanta he hota. Kam az kam hisab to na dena parrta! Mujh main quwwat hoti to me apnay aap ko rate k karorron zarron main tabdeel kr k na janay kahan kahan urra deta. Lkn afsos k us gharri se phir bhi bacha nahin ja sakta. (Would that I was nothing, or an animal or a mountain or a lake or light or a flower or at most darkness or a thorn. This way I would not be held answerable to Him. If I could do it I would decompose myself in billions of granules and scatter them all over the universe. But even that cannot help me escape Judgement!)

Coming back to the dear aapa, I chatted with her only once. She was here in the UK in a certain hospital in Manchester. I think she said she was better. Then we could not chat again for well over a month. And then I found some of her messages on my profile at FK. I replied to them and AM STILL WAITING FOR A REPLY BACK! It does not seem to be coming for years on end.

My heart prays for her!

Waves (Lehren)

Waves or ‘lehren’ as they are called in Urdu stand high in imaginative poetry and are like a friend or foe to us (Though poetry is not the subject of discussion here).

The rise and fall of waves takes us up and down with them emotionally and create such a divine surge of thoughts that one goes running in fondness chasing these wave-thoughts and building on them. We flow with the waves thus created and are ecstatic in the delight or sorrow they bring. Thoughts in their very nature are just like waves; they come around, they rise, they fall, they take us up and down with them and create a bulge - be it of extreme ecstatic divineness or chilling sadness. Both of them serve to exalt us.

The waves that rise and fall in our minds are just like the waves that rise and fall in the sea. At times these waves bring with them roaring winds and heavy rains that flood the nearby areas and leave them in need of repair and care. Similarly there are waves that rise in our hearts and make us remember the pain, the trials of the past and how we got separated from the people we love or we thought we loved. The excruciating pain that such waves inflict tears through our bodies rendering us fragile and at times dead to the world. At yet other times there are waves bless us with divine sensations and fill us with such happiness as we had never experienced before. Waves of this kind take with them whatever ‘dirty’ or painful resides on the shores of our hearts just as sometimes waves in the physical sea do.

Yet there is another aspect to the concept of waves which we generally, being humans, ignore or make light of. It is this concept of waves that I personally hold dear, very close to my heart.

I like to think of man as a freely floating object on the colossal mass of the waters of this world; and Allah the shore. Man floats on and on in his pursue of worldly comforts and works hard to achieve goals that will make him rise in this world. He is constantly running notching up one milestone after the other. Man does all this in search of perfect poise where he can live his life smoothly and in extreme comfort. In this search for equilibrium he usually comes across hurdles, pain, troubles and seldom true success. In these trials and tribulations sometimes he feels so weary that he decides to stop running. After a few moments someone else comes by and he looking at this ‘amazing’, ‘awesome’ person decides again to take up the race to better his chances in the wide world.

But if he makes some space for this third aspect of waves; the one that tells him that he will only ‘float’ like lifeless objects until he believes Allah to be the shore towards which he must be striving to go; then and only then he achieves the true satisfaction and comfort and happiness. When one truly believes that whatever he is doing in the life has to be for Allah and Allah must be his top priority in all the struggles of his life. Here I do mean the ‘worldly’ struggles. Then when there is pain he shows patience and when there is success and happiness he does take into account his God, Allah and believes that this success came only because Allah wanted it this way; he achieves true happiness and satisfaction surges through his body until it ‘completely’ encapsulates him. Living life like this the true believer in the end reaches his ultimate goal – Allah. That’s why we see many people while dying have smile on their faces. This is the smile of meeting with Allah and ultimate destination of all the lovers.

Note:  I decided to write this post after reading a post about 'lehren aur yaden' at www.friendskorner.com.

Siachen and our leaders

It is a week since Pakistan army suffered a dramatic loss when a huge avalanche swept over a base camp at Gayari sector in Siachen. Since then every body has been praying for a miracle that saves the 139 people, including 128 soldiers, who lay under the gargantuan mass of ice God knows in what condition. As yet no progress has been made in retrieving the precious bodies that are sacred enough to be cried for.

This giant tragedy has brought cries from all sides of demilitarizing Siachen which has engulfed billions of dollars and hundreds of precious lives since this seemingly useless standoff began with the Indian army in April 1984. This is ironically sinister since it is in April 28 years later when our brave soldiers lie there under giant body of cruel ice that can take life out of anything that is roaring with energy and activity only moments earlier.

The good thing is that many of these voices belong to the people who matter. The most prominent ones are Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan. Nawaz Sharif has said without any hesitation that our government should not look towards Indian government waiting for what they do. He believes that we should do it on our own if the Indians are not willing to go ahead with the demilitarizing. This is good since he enjoys a lot of clout in Pakistan. This statement of his echoes 1997 talks between Pakistan and India as well as reminds one of nuclear tests that he carried in response to those made by India. It can be safely projected that if he wins the next elections in Pakistan he will be making a lot more effort than before to engage India in talks on various levels. This might include the eight-point agenda agreed with the Indian government in 1997 before he was ousted by Musharraf.

Imran Khan is of the view that this should not be a unilateral step. He must be seeing through the eyes of a captain and weighing the pros and cons of this 'move'. He seems eager for Pakistan army to pull out of this lethal adventure that is doing no good to our 'jawans' but only if the other side reciprocates our move. At the moment he is thinking as a strategist though the burden of this loss clearly weighs heavy on him like on every other Pakistani who thinks highly of our brave forces.

Another voice that I will call more important than the preceding two is of the General Ashfaq Pervez kayani who said that he is highly in favour of talks with India and a decrease in defense budget. He thinks that development and defense should go hand in hand. Defense as well as development along with spending on the people of a country is important for the strength at the national level.

Last but not the least the President's visit to India hold a lot of importance in its own right as well as in the context of what is happening now. It seems that the Nature also agreed with him and a sort of aided him on his tour to India by bringing about the fatal incident, enlarging the futility of Siachen to a proprotion that it can no longer be ignored by any of us.

This brings us to the conclusion that the leaders of Pakistan are heading towards a maturer look on different issues affecting Pakistan. It seems they have learnt from the past especially the most recent incident owing to which many issues have burst themselves onto the scene. A new era appears to be in brewing when the Pakistani masses will be the main focus of the policies our government make in the near future.

The Brutality Of Siachen

Pakistan Army suffered the heaviest calamity at Siachen in around 30 years on 7th April, 2012 when 135 soldiers and civilians from our brave army were buried by a huge avalanche in Gayari sector.

The rescue efforts are still ongoing with 452 men taking part but without any success as yet. Up until the mid-day 40 feet of snow had been removed nearly half more staring the rescuers in the face who work unrelentingly and untiringly to pull their colleagues out of the clutches of death of which there is lesser hope with every minute passing.

 

Every eye mourns the tragedy, every heart cries at the disaster as this incident sits atop in our minds inviting discussions at what happened and detailed review of the frigid arctic conditions in which our soldiers are destined to work at the height of 20000 feet.

Both Pakistan and India spend around $500 million annually and also bear the loss of life which is mainly due to the brutalities of Siachen. Its frigid conditions take a heavy toll of life on both sides. Though India unofficially celebrated what they called "zero casualty" in 2007. That year they suffered only three casualties two of which happened in a copter crash. Whereas on our side the destiny writes a different story. Pakistan has not been able to make such claims as yet. 

Though there must be enough facilities for the brave soldiers of our army still a lot needs to be done for their well being. I am sure the administration of our Army will leave no stone unturned in providing for the brave army personnel who serve there away from their homes and loving family.

Our prayers are with the army and the families of those affected by this tragic incident. We do have hope that Allah save them and deliver them of the catastrophe.

Kazhak Mulims Angry

Since the post I published today about the blasphemy to the name of Allah I have been looking online and I happened on this story.

The Muslims of Kazakistan - a dominantly Muslim country are angry at a company that produces vodka at the inclusion of word "Allah" on its bottles.

The Muslims in the dominantly Muslim society are up in arms against the Baiterek vodka which has been selling alcohol with the inscription "The Power of Allah Suffices for All". There is a huge uproar at this. According to the Radia Free Europe Radio Liberty religious leaders in the country have been asking their congregation members to keep calm and "not to succumb to their emotions over the inscription on the bottle".

Among the news websites that carried the story are:

Times Live

Associated Press

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

abc News

Newsday

Related post:

Desecration of Allah and Islam