Remembrance

Remembrance 

By Asfiya Aziz

My breathing is fast and wild. I feel a heavy load on my chest and a dizziness in my head. My heart had skipped a beat just a while ago. And I know now that was the very moment my dear brother had breathed his last miles away from me.

The lights around me are dim and soft. The room is chilly and everything is quiet and still. I cannot hear my own heartbeat. Perhaps it ceased with my brother's.

The pictures of a childhood together, dance on the screen of my mind. We play, study, chat and grow up together. Here are my parents lovingly, caringly watching over us. It is love, laughter, merriment all around. Here is the scene of a terrible fight. We clash and disagree. Then we leave for our rooms as bidden after a lengthy lecture. Now, I see myself crying bitterly in my room, indignant, terribly hurt. And I see today, my teenage tormentor also cries in pain in his own room. The next morning, I wake up as he kisses my cheek and all around is as sunny as before.

A curtain flutters slightly with the breeze. Who knows it might be his soul slipping in to say good bye for the last time. The light breeze brushes my cheek. I stand up and look out of the window. The vastness of the starry night makes me wonder. Is it as dark as the night that has descended in my brother's eyes?

His lustrous, cheerful eyes, his tall, handsome figure, his strong and broad shoulders - their memory fills my eyes with tears, when once, one look at him used to fill my heart with pride. I feel the sudden absence of vigor the sight of him added to my spirits in my ordeals of life. I sit down feeling tired all of a sudden.

It stabs at my heart to think of the pain my darling brother must have experienced. It numbs my senses to imagine the courageous fight he put up against a far greater, a more potent rival - death. And how he succumbed, gave up the fight, opted for an eternal rest!

My heart is rent. My own flesh and blood is dead. It was my blood that trickled down his body. It was my soul that struggled to wriggle itself free from the cares of this world, it was my body that lay slain before the world. The loyal, invincible bulwark of a brother is shattered for me.

Time goes on. Even this period of anguish will pass. But the darkness, the stillness, the silence that I perceive now will forever stand agape in my life where I would wish to see my brother.

Printed in MAG Weekly on October 3, 1996.

Game has changed

The game has changed. And if it ever was, being right is no longer enough. I refer to the recent protests and their aftermath.

Images of violence, arson, weapons, and vandalism dominated the television coverage of the day. No matter how hoarse the protagonists may cry themselves about the day being peaceful in the rest of the country, the televised images will always speak louder.

The message is simple. In the day and age of technology, Muslims need to raise their game. The advent of satellite communication means the space for public discourse has gone global. What we do in Karachi on a sunny afternoon is being telecast live on the other side of the world. Alien cultures are coming face to face on an unprecedented scale.

While we demand that the rest of the world should make an effort to understand Islam, we need to place a similar demand on ourselves to present a sensible argument for our point of view.

Media loves a spectacle and no matter how many millions turned out in peaceful protest that day, the violent mob got all the attention.

Considering the communal nature of the cause, it was the government’s duty to hire professionals to choreograph the day, to send out the elusive image of a peaceful Islam everyone seems to go blue in the face declaring a love for.

Perhaps a silent demonstration of people holding the holy symbols of all major religions of the world would have demonstrated clearly that Muslims are required by faith to respect all religions. It would have been a far more potent example.

The subsequent efforts by the youngsters to clean up the mess are commendable. However, the battle was lost and it was just that, a cleaning up after. While it works on a different level for our country, it does nothing for the day of shame we brought upon ourselves. It was yet another lost opportunity to present our best image when the world was looking.

Those who feel betrayed by a biased media, need to realize that the turf under their feet has changed colours. The sooner we learn to respond to media attention with grace and ingenuity, the better it will be for our collective peace of mind.

Stop killing

How about a campaign - 'just stop killing human beings'? I wonder how I could begin this kinda campaign.

Any news of killing, mass murder or just individual crimes, makes me sick. I have stopped scanning newspapers frequently, but news of murders catches the eye, esp on the tickers on TV.

There are lots of people in our towns and villages who don't mind killing their own flesh and blood over petty arguments, marriages, property, women. And somehow, news of group murders are rife, esp on Express channel.

I wonder what is the proportion of these murderers to our whole population. And I also wonder whether such people, without being Taliban supporters, can ever condemn the killings perpetrated by the terrorist outfits. I mean they have been brought up in a culture where killings are not as strictly condemned, apparently.