The harsh, cold, January night wind, cold as the hearts of the bourgeoisie who, like some demented, malevolent God, play with the lives of the thousands upon millions of unfortunate souls that reside within this country, forces the congregation of brightly clothed young men and women to huddle closer together, their titters of a moment ago replaced by audible shivering. The wind has just started to blow away the fog but it is obvious to all that it will fail, it will fail and suffer the same fate that the winds of change in Pakistan have always suffered, for no matter how hard the wind blows, the fog, much akin to the fog of ignorance, needs but a moment of respite before it engulfs them again, a veil, much as the veil of empathy engulfs the people of this land, obscuring the people right beside them. One of them does not shiver, does not constantly rub his hands nor portrays any other sign of being cold; it would seem he actually feels hot, for he holds his jacket folded over one arm. Unbeknownst to the others, this is not because he possesses an inherent immunity to the cold but rather because he had the foresight of dressing for the weather instead of the occasion. They stand like this for a while before it is suggested that he give his jacket to a female in their company who seems to be on the verge of freezing from the cold. He complies, seeing as he has no utility for the jacket. What he does not know that in this country, just because you have the capacity to help someone and you want to help that someone and everyone tells you to help that someone, doesn’t mean that you should help that someone.
Such is the land of hypocrites. Such is this country of silver-tongued liars and cheaters.
Such is this Munafiqistan, where even love is not spared, indeed it’s the first tragedy, the first sacrifice at the altar of hypocrisy that every denizen of this country offers when from a very tender age, they are taught to love everyone, except those who belong to a different sect, a different ethnicity and/ or a different religion, when they’re taught to value love as the noblest endeavour, only to be taught in the next breath to treat it as a mere commodity to be sold to the highest bidder. Oft you’ll come across people, most likely under 25, who, struggling with their feelings of affections towards a specific person, will try to express these feelings to the aforementioned person, in such a way that it does not offend the sensibilities of a nation which considers the willful expression of love a taboo and the commercialization of it but a necessary vice. These attempts are forever amusing in their futility, for a random bystander. Immediately after they invariably fail, most of them can be found wandering the halls of one institute or the other, listening and discussing Qawaalis, Ghazals and such or, if they’re particularly ardent Anglophiles, reading/discussing their English counterparts. Give a few months and this person will finally become a proper citizen and will develop the double-faced, nay, multiple faced personality required to function as such.
It would be extremely easy to fall prey to the national rationale, according to which everything that is wrong is the consequence of the “moral degeneration” caused by the changing times but it would be a false conclusion, for this hypocrisy has always existed in this land. From Waris Shah’s “Heer Ranjha” of 300 years ago to Bapsi Sidhwa’s “The Croweaters” of 30 years ago, we find this hypocrisy rampant, and despite the best efforts of these authors, and countless more, the Munafiqs fail to recognize it, even as they laud these authors for these very works.
Such is the land of Munafiqistan, where an errant look from a female will be considered invitation enough while the supposed “men” of this country ogle everything that moves in their surroundings without inviting any social backlash. Yes, you can blatantly disregard the teachings of a person but discussing those teachings? That’s a big no, no. Mind your every conversation, because if you converse with the opposite gender in a controlled environment on academic topics, there’s no guarantee that you won’t be punished by the public for this audacious action of yours, however if you were to engage in cat calling or were even to force yourself upon someone, a few well-placed calls, a bribe or, failing these, a defence of “she was dressed for it” would get you off the hook. Yes, you can drink as much alcohol as you want, provided that you’re rich and then, with that very alcohol laced breath, condemn the stupid poor who die because of drinking alcohol that has not been prepared properly. Write as many articles declaring the faults of this land, but when the time comes to act, your own nature will prevent you from acting.
But perhaps what is required for this country as a whole is for its hypocrisy to reach its apotheosis, much as the witch trials of America were required for it to realize, gradually, its own brutality. I fail to think of any other alternative, for much like any model citizen of this nation, my solutions to every problem faced by this country are idealistic in their very nature and are such which absolve me of any responsibility by effectively transferring it to an all powerful third party. So, it would be better for you to ignore this typical rant and go on about your life, much as you ignore similar rants every day.
