This is me!

I didn’t ever like writing about myself. But now I think I should shape up myself in something about me as well. And write about what this ordinary boy(me) feels and may be spill the beans about his life somewhere in this blog in the coming time. In the mid night at PECHS Society Karachi, in a peaceful room allotted to me from a private organization I am working for, I am missing everyone in my life today that is responsible to teach me something out of him/her. Life has been so tough for me since I passed my Eighth class and still is. My futuristic plans were shorn off quite badly. I considered myself as a very ‘Achha bachha’ or an endowed kid in my early schooling but I think only the hardest times teach us the ‘Emotional Intelligence’. Life is surely not only about being a good sharp witted chap but the most important requirement is to be smart, smart to go through with the trough and crusts of it. Smart to handle the extremity of pressures and troubles I faced and forgot myself in dealing with them through. It is not easy to explain as its(life) furious progression but today I am just thinking about those who by one way or the other helped me gain momentum thus holds momentous roll in my life. The dull life in an exuberant city is just making me prepared for the real heat I am to start very shortly. I think I am not wasting my time but focusing on the career which should at least be according to my niche. I don’t dream to get going with the executive lot right from the word ‘go’, but gaining a leading position is an initial part of my milestones, I aspire. For this I am very much concerned and looking forward. I miss my home. I have peace here but this peace lacks the kindred content. I know it pays off.

Dude! Where is my Balochistan?

By Talha Masud

Few of my friends go berserk on me to never voice anguish over the Kill-Kill game being played across the province. I always had no verbal answer of that because what I feel is; this province was misused by everyone, from Military and Civil bureaucracy to the filthy and abhorrent stereotype politics. The worst level of the worst politics of Pakistan can be found here brazenly. It is insanity that no one is sincere towards this land but still expects a dramatic transformation. The peace of the area seems a chapter of the past.

Who to blame? Off course our own selves. As long as we are safe and hearty, we never care about our surroundings. This never was the practice in the past. The people of Balochistan had so much of generosity, hospitality, brotherhood, affection, warmth and care for each other. Why we are unable so see even a glimpse of it in the current scenario?

I come across many results of this question everyday. Janeson Boulton, an English friend of mine, visited Quetta in 2006. We went on to become great friends in few days of our association and gathering. People saw him with a strange eye, often started chauvinism, in which we had to intervene and moderate. How sad it is! “Those are other than you people who eloquently depict us as their rivals. A person who even gives his share of bread to the guest”, was according to Mr. Jane, “can’t take the lives of others”.

Then who are they who are so happy doing this and taking as if they are nearing to their destination by such blitz? Talk about the onslaught activities of Taliban or from Liberation fronts which consider ‘some’ as their acute rivals engendering their pointless killings in the name of the freedom. They want to make every non-local, a persona non grata. How far they are acceptable in masses, I put this as an open query for all of you to decide.

My few friends took me a sadistic fellow. One of my brotherly pal practically started hating me because of the reason that I am always a no-man over many points because they are falsely portrayed to have widely accepted. I can’t help much in this regard. I get speechless and dumbstruck at times.

It is a mischance of the province that every now and then, malevolent efforts are made to disintegrate the traditional harmony of the province. Let me remind you, this is the same province, where people were so involved with communal harmony and bonding. There were no misanthropists and the hand shake greetings took twenty minutes. Can we see those gestures now? My pent up feelings always propelled me to ask from my people with whom I have born, lived and still living: Are you happy on this onset of our downfall? Are we brave enough to stick to our guns in the main disputes of ours? Who amongst us has the influence and skill to convince the tardy government about the concurrent subjugation of our people and spiteful loses of lives, almost half a dozen each day, to all intents and purposes? Have we ever noticed our own flouting intentions?

I have an answer of my self-posed questions. Whatever is happening is risible for everyone living in Quetta or Balochistan as the problems don’t confine to any specific nation, but a resounding triumph of those, who never wished for peace in our province. Hats off to MOSSAD that I believe has more malicious intentions than RAW or any of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies.

There is a big game being played amid the silhouette and outcries of sporadic peace. We are enmeshed in our own mess as we have obfuscated our problems just by going on road-liner theories. We have no manners left in us. No adjustments are in our minds. Just going, the way poison of our minds lead us. I am tired of watching the dead faces from our province. Everyone is confused, hopeless, relentless in aghast, astounded, perturbed, and at his wits end, about everything instead of being perspicacious. The biggest deflated is myself who lost few good friends just because of my brusqueness. What should I do? Should I sew my lips and close my eyes like pigeon?

I was born, lived and spent my childhood and lad hood in interior Balochistan. I see a great difference between the preceding and the succeeding time of whopping transformative doldrums and melancholy in the fellow-men. I am terribly dismayed but not hopeless.

When I recollect a favorite lyric of mine, I read in my 9^th class’s Urdu poetry section, and then I understand that Ata Shad had the prophecy of the foreseen dire of Balochistan as he narrates in one of his Balochi prose translation in rhythmical Urdu;

Millet-E Madar E Watan Kitni Zaboon O Zaar Hay,

Din Main Dhuwan Dhuwan Si Wo Ratoon Ko AshKbaar Hay……

(Title enthused from ‘Dude, Where is my country?’(2003), an American bestseller by Micheal Moore)

The very basic Islam for Women

By Talha Masud

 

 

I was on cloud nine, when I managed to store something in the back of my head against the prevailing tumult I always witness against Islam. I always objected that Islam should not be misapprehended just by its followers whom, by having the best religion as their identity, never even tried to act upon it as an en masse. They are frustrated. Indeed they are, as Islam for them is left only about the things they know superficially. Maltreatment of women is the most important finger pointing posed against Islam with its extreme approach.

Woman’s natural role attributed to her by nature, the role of bearing, raising mankind and building through her ways and traditions, a befitting world-order for man, can never be torn away from her. That is the crucial role which she only can fulfill. Upon that role hangs not only  her very womanhood but the destiny of civilizations. It was destined that she who is wronged so cruelly, who is physically weak yet spiritually strong, should be empowered by the creator to transform man into the desired mould through the influence of her motherhood.

It is a stigma and a shame for the entire human race if woman is compelled to remind society of her rights. She must no longer look askance to others for her due rights. That is a thing of a past. She must not demand her rightful status. That too is a withering trend. Once again, she must prove that the Pardah or Hejab is no hindrance in a woman’s progress. No job on earth is beyond the reach of a Pardah-observing woman. It is the time for the Muslim woman to stop judging herself by Alien standards. As far as woman is concerned, it cannot be denied that in the present-day society, despite endless women’s liberation organizations and movements, she is the most oppressed, the most suppressed, the most subjugated person on earth in general. Her problems are acute. Every culture has made woman dance, dance to its sub-human’s, humiliating tunes. Ironically, it is men who have always defined women’s problems and their solutions, More often than not, these posers of women which reach public notice only after being censored by males, are often tailored up falsely and seen through biased vision. Sadly enough, the distorted version of Islam which is practiced today by Muslims is thought to be real Islam. People quote examples of contemporary Islamic activists of being so confined when it comes to dealing with their women, if the same is happening under the shadow of the man-defined course of any Nation’s rules, they have complete silence over this, because they are as proud of their culture as any Islamic extremist is, of his frame of mind.

The Muslim community has itself to blame for the abysmal fall of Muslim women. Is it not a fact that even elementary education is denied to Muslim girls whereas the Prophet held the attainment of education to be compulsory for men and women alike? Is it not true that Muslim girls are often not consulted in the matter of their marriage and not even allowed to see the future life-partner whereas the Prophet has permitted that a man intending to marry a girl may see her? Islam grants her the liberty to demand a separate residence for herself if she is not comfortable living combined, which is one of the main problems in that context. Is it not true that even wealthy families expect their wives and girls to play a dumb role whereas Islam grants them total right of freedom of expression?

I (writer) don’t want to present a scholastic philosophy here, neither I am capable of doing it. I myself am ashamed of being a bad Muslim. I do not pray punctually or perform minute liabilities of my religion, which are not a hurdle in my day-to day life. But what I do is to think. Think about those who always have to blame Islam by taking instances of the fake Muslims. It took very long for me to understand that the effectiveness of Islamic law in every detail makes it more practicable and superior and relevant to the problems of every age, because the problems remain the same in every age. Only their texture change.

I don’t want to dwell into the details of the so-called ostentatious claims of the west or the people amongst us, having solid theories against pathetic (according to them) Islamic restrictions for women to prevent themselves from stepping out of their doors, flying in colors in their studies, ensuing to their aims, dreams, ambitions and aspirations pertaining their career selection and growth with the precautionary measures prescribed by Islam, that never dislodge women from their areas of specialization. On the contrary, not on the executive front, in western freedom, women in clerical, typing and junior jobs are pressured to go to bed to secure jobs. Silent conditions for employment say, ‘No sex no job’ and ‘No sex no promotion’. Is that freedom and equality? It is the worst slavery of women and blackmail and a refined way of playing the same game with women as that in the field of prostitution.

According to a friend who helped me to get a vision before writing this article, “The misunderstandings regarding the women’s status and rights in Islam can only be dispelled by critical and direct study of the rights granted to her in Islam”. The study needs to be observed in full light with an open mind removed from pre-conceived prejudice.