What is uprooting the only tree in our courtyard?
Is it the hand of death, which is uprooting the only tree in our courtyard? Is it not the same tree that has sheltered us since our first day on this earth?
The tree that always gave us love and protection; it is now trembling with fear, the fear of an invisible monster which is tearing it down.
This mysterious ogre grew up on our blood. Is it death? The ultimate end? Perhaps not. It seems that the hate that we nourished in our minds for each other for so long is finally catching up with us, pushing us close to our end.
We cannot blame anyone for this. We were warned that this hatred will one day devour us but we ignored the warning. And now we have fiends and ghouls inside our homes. We want to cast them out but we cannot.
They tie us upside down on that old tree which is already shivering with fear. We mourn our loss but nobody is there to help us out.
We are stuck in a whirlpool and we are drowning. We cannot escape because there is no escape.
We are so scared that we cannot even scream. We are waiting, hanging upside down, and the priests of this religion of fear are performing our last rites. But we are silent.
We wait, hanging upside down, for the redeemer to come and deliver us. But we do not realise that there is no redeemer. Nobody will come and rescue us. Nobody will bring us our freedom.
We just have blood-sucking bats. And they have a job too. They have been asked to make sure that we do not escape.
We are the prisoners of these fearful priests who want our blood. And they suck our blood every night to perform their filthy rites.
They force us to celebrate every death in our neighbourhood. The moon brings some comfort. But as the sun sets, the jackals come out, hordes and hordes of them, howling madly. Their howling brings out the dead, instilling new fears among the living.
This is how one of the four regular dervishes at the Alif Laila Tavern, Virginia, began his story but before he could finish, someone in the audience stopped him.
“This is a morbid story, we want something cheerful,” he said.
“Cheerful? OK,” said the dervish. “Here is a cheerful story.”
“This is the story of a nation of amputees and its leaders, both military and civilian and now judicial too,” he said. “You may ask how an entire nation lost its limbs. It is simple, this problem started with one person and spread like a jungle fire until the whole nation was affected.”
“A man went to a surgeon and showed his leg, which was blue. The surgeon amputated the leg. But soon his other leg also went blue and was amputated. The man got an artificial leg.
“After a while that leg went blue too, so he went to the surgeon again. The surgeon looked at the artificial leg and said: ‘Now I know what is wrong with you. Your dhoti sheds colour.’”
“So now that you know how we have a nation of amputees, can I proceed with my story?” asked the dervish.
“It is very gloomy. We do not want to know,” said the audience.
“Gloomy? Jokes are supposed to make you laugh,” the dervish said.
“No, we cannot laugh. It was a cruel joke,” the audience responded.
“You cannot laugh. You cannot cry. Do you know why?” the dervish asked.
And without waiting for their response, he added: “You have lost your emotions. And it only happens when you lose your ability to hear or tell stories.”
And then he started telling them how an entire village lost its ability to tell stories.
“This happened long, long ago,” said the dervish. “So long ago that people had not yet learned to read books, at least not in this village. And since they could not read, they had no books in the village.”
So the story-fairy came to this village one day, thinking she will teach the villagers how to read and write. And as it often happens in such stories, the fairy came to that village disguised as a beautiful songbird.
She sat on a tree and started singing a beautiful song. The villagers heard this song and gathered around the tree, men, women and children.
“It is a beautiful bird,” said one of them. “It sings so well. Let us capture it.”
They brought their nets and traps and began laying them around the tree to catch the bird. The bird, since it was no bird but a fairy, escaped and went to another tree and started singing again.
They villagers went to that tree too with their nets and traps but failed to catch the bird. When they failed for the third time, they brought catapults and tried to shoot the bird down.
This also failed, so they gave little stones to their children and asked them to drive the bird away.
When the bird, which was no bird but the story-fairy, saw this, she quietly flew away from the village.
When the night came, the children gathered around fireplaces, in their living rooms and inside their bedrooms and asked their mothers and grandmothers to tell them stories as they did every night.
But no matter how hard they tried, their mothers and grandmothers could not tell a story. They seemed to have forgotten all the stories they knew, so they asked their men.
But the men proved as helpless as the women. So the children had to go to bed without their bedtime stories.
When it happened night after night, the villagers sent their men far and wide to find out what was wrong with their village, who had cursed it and how to remove this curse.
They went everywhere but nobody could find a cure for this strange ailment. Not until one day a very old man came to the village and told them he was a retired wizard from the story land and he knew what was wrong with them.
“You annoyed the story-fairy who came to your village as a songbird but you tried to trap it, shoot it down and threw stones at it. So she flew away, taking all the stories with her,” said the old man.
“What do we do now?” asked the villagers.
“It is easy. Go and buy birdfeed and setup little birdhouses around your village. Fill them with birdfeed and put little pots, filled with water near them.
“This will bring birds from far and wide, and one day the story-fairy will also return. If she is satisfied with your arrangement and feels that you really repent what you did, she may return your stories,” the old man said.
So the villagers setup a body, gave them money to buy bird feed and birdhouses and some more money to set them up. But people entrusted with this task did everything except what they were asked to do.
They collected funds in the name of the story-fairy but used them for buying everything but what they were supposed to buy.
To convince the people that they meant business, they changed the name of their village to the Great People’s Republic of the Storytellers. Then to the Great Religious Republic of the Storytellers. And then to the Great Liberal Republic of the Storytellers.
But such gimmicks did not bring back the story-fairy or her stories. People still hope that one day the fairy will return with her stories. So they keep on funding these governing bodies. What they do not know is that the people they have entrusted with this task are working against it.
They have hired people who go from tree to tree with their catapults and scare away the birds. They do not want their funds to stop by bringing back the stories.
They are good at chanting slogans, though. So if you go to this village, you will often hear: “Long live the Republic of the Story-fairy,” – story or no story.
The author is a correspondent for Dawn, based in Washington, DC.
The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.
Please stop cutting down trees or I will get the animal control on to you, cause that whats you are animals !!
Absolutely Loved it !!! Please tell us more stories Anwar bhai. Tell us good stories as we have managed to scare every fairy of good away
The beautiful songbirds like Siberian migratory birds used to come in our village. On account of our greed, the beautiful songbirds flew away from our village. When we lose our ability of hospitality and to hear their sweet songs. Songs or no songs we keep on collecting funds to take care of these birds. Now there are the owls sitting on every branch of trees of our village. What will become the outcome of our village gardens. God knows better.
This is like a mirror Anwar Iqbal has held up to us and I certainly do not like the grotesque image reflected in it. This is the kind of writing that goes straight to the heart, and makes it heavy with sadness and pain. However, we need to nurture the new saplings for in them lies any hope for the future.. the deadwood needs to be cast aside!
Amazing!!!
Awesome piece of writing…! Thanx for bringing into prominence such a great topic and enhancing our information…!
What a true picture and a reminder. What else we need to know? But my dear Anwar bhai, bhains kay aagay been bajaanay say kyaa faaedah? (what is the use of playing flute in front of buffaloes) God only helps those who help themselves first. The time looking for fairies is over. God blessed us with few story-fairies, but as you said, we love to kill or scare them away. I guarantee you that even if Quaid-e-Azam comes back from heaven to rescue us, he will be forced to join either Great Religious Republic of story tellers or Great Liberal Republic of story tellers. That means this extreme or that extreme. That is it. In case if he refused to dance on their tunes and tried to tell us the true story-fairy once again, he will either be killed or kicked out with the labels like Kafir, Ghaddar (denier and traitor) and what not, and you never know, his license to practice law will be cancelled, because he did not belong to party of pure and his status as a superior lawyer will be considered as threat to hall of fame legal pundits which could lead to contempt of court. Not only this, he won't be allowed to enter into bar association buildings because these bar associations are owned by the sons of land of pure, where no other impure person is allowed to enter. Poor Quaid-e-Azam was neither son of soil nor could speak the language of pure. ultimately, Quaed-e-Azam will have to hands up and leave for England once again.
As a matter of fact, our country is not in need of good leaders, it needs "BAASHAOOR AWAAM" who should be able to differentiate between leaders and the thugs and know the value of votes. Zameer-e-insaan agar sadaa day.. (it takes conscience) zafarsyed40@yahoo.com
Marvellous piece!! But lets not blame leaders only. Lit your own candle – it'll surely make the difference – you create awareness through your pen and all of us through our own ways… It's my conviction that this tree will never be uprooted.
No other story could describe that village better.
Excellent article after a long time. You have narrated a true story of a nation which is decadent and inorganic.
This is one article I would really call GREAT!
there should be a space/ distance between the story and article.
Wow .. You have explained it so well … Such an Excellent Piece of writing … Kaash Loog kuch Ghaur o fikar shoroo karde … Ab Nahe tho phir kabhie Nahee … !
You found a beautiful story inside you. Alas, you had to move to another village (Washington) to find it.
newly born/baby trees should be planted far away from the grown up/gigantic trees. So that small ones get their fair share of light and oxygen and they tend to learn how to face deadly storms and disasters….(Ashfaq Ahmed/ Bano Qudsia)
Ashfaque Saheb was absolutely right but unfortunately we had no choice. We were partitioned from a huge tree and had to live under its shade. It is not possible to create a physical distance between us and the mother tree. So we should have been more careful.
This is the story from the story bird and is brilliantly written. I hope people still have the patience to read sense and are able to make sense of it.
You are master of your art, no doubt.
Beautifully written article.
I just wonder if it was a “nation” in the first place. It seems to have nothing common except bigotry, confusion, illusions of their history, faith and the world. Maybe, just maybe, Pakistan appeared too early; people were not ready for it and it was too early because it hadn't become a ripe- mature nation, yet! It is possible that this crowd does become a nation in the process, but then all this wear and tear is expected, because it became orphan after it lost its fathers so early in the history. I am afraid; at the moment they just appear to be like juvenile delinquents!
a very good write up! i like it!
marvellous……..
this is such a true story!
BITTER TRUTH !!
Another excellent, meaningful , thought provocative article !!!
Thanks Anwar Sahab !!