How interesting it is that a ‘magic box’ can so profoundly leave a stain on one’s heart like a child who isn’t quick enough to get the ice-cream man’s attention on a bright sunny day.
This ‘magic box’ is no longer simply a box in many households – as it used to be – but, now, more like a flat, phone-like shape. I am still the owner of a ‘box’, as it may be said. Technologically outdated, but with a willpower of a determined horse, sworn to abide by his master’s command, my television had been away to be fixed after it failed me, leaving me and my father unable to watch the nine o’ clock news one night. The days initially, after the absence of my steed were inefficient, but I quickly learned to keep busy with other activities, for I was unaware that it’d be three weeks before its return.
Upon the arrival of my rather fragile television set, my siblings and I rejoiced. It wasn’t until a whole day (due to the need of habit) that we (my father and I) sat down at nine o’ clock once again to watch the hourly news. What I saw, one after the other were frightening scenes of gruesome acts carried out by our countrymen – reasoned with prejudices and vices – towards their fellow countrymen. Among many, I saw videos of Qandeel Baloch’s lifeless body, of a mother in horror and shock on the murder of her 15-year-old son, and an angry mob that lynched an apparent thief. The latter in particular is the reason for this article or account or whatever you may call it. The barbarity with which this said mob beat him up, the foul language, the smirks on the perpetrators’ – yes, I definitely brand them as perpetrators – faces, and the fact that they stripped him was only rendered further appalling after they threw his half-conscious body into a dirty canal.
“He’s a goner,” a voice is heard in the video, “Hmm, that’s good, that’s good,” says another.
It’s as if scenes we see in gruesome videos games – scenes we enjoy – have come to life, and re-enacted by the universe to haunt us. The threshold of visual endurance is raised every day for a Pakistani watching the news and other media. The first thing I had to do after watching this video is to compile a few verses from prose and poetry of the most influential writers, including God, Rumi and several Pakistanis. The reason, I felt, was because these writers are respected, and acclaimed throughout the world even. Social media ‘liberals’ are always on the hunt of arguing for the sake of argument itself – which is often out of harm’s way given the context – which more than often infuriates, rather than mollify or pacify the other party. The end to these arguments is more than often: You are entitled to your opinions, and I am to mine. When will this end? When will these ‘liberals’ grow up, empathize and accept the fact that the other entity could possibly be free of error? When will they learn to change ideas that have been exhausted and tested for years and years without so much as a silver lining?
The idea is to enforce wisdom and to understand that the atrocities we see in the news and other media is not the ideals that this country was based upon, nor what our religion – or any religion for that matter – teaches us, and nor what ‘being human’ is defined as. Instead of a heated discussion with a mutual friend of a friend, please read and understand what leading writer of the past are trying to awaken in us.
I have compiled together a few stanzas and verses, all of which are the first of each of the respected writers’ works – except for the last. For that last is the last verse of Rumi’s work:
In the name of God, the infinitely Compassionate and Merciful.
Praise be to God, Lord of all the worlds.
The Compassionate, the Merciful. Ruler on the Day of Reckoning.
You alone do we worship, and You alone do we ask for help.
Guide us on the straight path,
The path of those who have received your grace;
Not the path of those who have brought down wrath, nor of those who wander astray*
Blessed be the Sacred Land
Happy be the bounteous realm
Symbol of high resolve
Land of Pakistan
Blessed be thou citadel of faith*
The happiness of the world is nothing for me,
For my heart is left with no feeling besides blood*
What use is it bowing one’s head?
To what avail has prostrating led?
Reading Kalma you make them laugh
Absorbing not a word while the Quran you quaff
The truth must be here and there sustained
It’s all in One contained*
Our eyes yearn for greenery
The garden is a bloody mess
For whom should I sing my songs of love
The cities are all a wilderness
The garden is a bloody mess*
God is not yours, to Him we have access
He does not look kindly on those who oppress*
At last you have departed and gone to the Unseen.
What marvelous route did you take from this world?*
1* Deewan-e-Ghalib by Ghalib
2* Pakistan’s National Anthem by Hafeez Jalandhri
3* Ek Nukte Wich Gal Mukdi Ae by Bulleh Shah
4* Bagiya Lahoo Luhan by Habib Jalib
5* Khuda Hamara Hai by Habib Jalib
6* Gone to the Unseen by Rumi
