14
Our fights continue. We spend a substantial amount of our budget on our security, as compared to spending on our homes, ourselves, our children, and their education and health. In fact, we have stockpiled our homes with weapons. Our ears are against the wall at all times, listening in on each other. We always know what the other side is up to, but we never know what is going on in our own homes. Our homes are dependent upon the Divine Being to function. Money for the security of our homes is always subtracted first from the total budget. Other expenses are then dealt with the remaining amount. My brother and I may have the most rudimentary food in our stomachs, but we strut around the neighbourhood in arrogance. This scares not only the people walking by, but also frightens those who live in far-flung areas. Besides, both of us brothers are nuclear powers, and it is a matter of pride that we can walk shoulder-to-shoulder with the influential ones.
On the other side, the defender’s intention did not change frequently and never attempted to take over as the owners of the house. Neither did religion get much of a chance to get involved in the housekeeping, nor was their house ruled by feudal and religious extremism. Those who see their death in the spread of education try everything in their power to keep my progeny away from blessings such as education. Their ability to think, comprehend and question is suppressed, hence the bud withers away in its infancy. This bud is watered with books; it flourishes under art, music, dance and theatre. Unfortunately, all of that is becoming a taboo on this side of the wall. On the other side, however, the nurturing of the bud has continued for several centuries. Therefore, it continues to mature every day.
We have two generations: one beyond the wall that grows every day, and the one on this side, which is instead being suppressed every day. It seems that the government has withdrawn from its responsibility of providing education to its citizens. Why lament the state of a nation’s education when those responsible for the sector and those who draw salaries for providing education have their children admitted and studying in private schools? They cannot educate their children in state schools when their own servants’ children are enrolled in private schools, where the teachers are appointed with their signatures.
There are those whom God has blessed profoundly, but only in numerous offspring. They keep producing more children, and leave each child in God’s care, where their rearing, living, food and education is the responsibility of God’s noble servants. The madrassas are spreading rapidly, and there will soon be a time when there will be fewer schools and more madrassas. Those who can barely manage two meals a day have begun to send their children to these madrassas out of despair. Besides, even the US has begun to assist the Saudi sheikhs in providing the latest facilities to Pakistani madrassas, already known to many as the American blessing.
Once there used to be the custom of extra-curricular activities in schools along with curriculum, like debating societies, drama, music, sports and countless other activities. Every child’s talents would become apparent and therefore. honed from an early age. There were numerous competitions in the city, and across the nation. Talented children were acquainted with each other from an early age. But then everything changed. Then what happened was that the same people who cry, “A friend of the US is a traitor” began to feel comfortable in the US’s lap, for which they began to receive compensation, amounting to a great many US dollars. That changed their entire lives. Slowly, this monster began to devour politics, bureaucracy, social work and the military, so that all of them became one and the same. Everything got lost in this money market of dollars and riyals.
If you wished to do something righteous, the money would start pouring in, given by the people as blindly as they received it. If someone wants to help someone else or engage in some social work, a proposal must be drafted first, then obtain funding and then lose themselves in the mountains of financial records in such a manner that the social work ends up remaining so in name only. The government’s funds are barely enough to pay out the salaries and other similar expenses, so the things that should be spent on are merely neglected. Art, literature, music, dance bring a certain refinement, and grace to the society. But on our side of the wall, nobody has any proposals or funds for these things, as they are not considered important enough to be a priority.
Our greatest priority is to fight terrorism and we need funds for it. But no questions must be asked as to where, why and how this money would be spent. Wherever there is a deficit in the funds allocated to the maintenance of law and order, any issue pertaining to the law and order situation in that area would be initiated. For instance, the killing of a couple of people, a few bomb blasts can easily get more funds allocated for maintaining peace in any area. We have made a fool out of America, like no one ever will. We took aid from them to make the Taliban, and then took some more to destroy them.
We lost all our simplicity, our grace, dignity, respect and honesty while we ran after money. The new generations on our neighbour’s side of the wall are constantly rising in talent and fame at a tender age. Even the corporate organisations there are increasingly investing more in music, dance, drama and general knowledge. There, the prizes are awarded for an individual’s skills and talents. But here, prizes are distributed as if they were being given out in charity. Day and night, everything good is being done for the poor who were made poor because of those doing all those good deeds for them. The business of religion is at its peak and TV ratings have skyrocketed.
The guru beyond the wall listens to a child sing and is extremely proud about the fact that their new generation has the most shining future ahead of it. The simplicity and honesty on the child’s face is the same as it is in the guru’s eyes and on their face. If a student sings a song sung by their guru, then the latter praises the former by saying, unashamedly, that my student sang it better than I ever did. But the guru here, instead of nurturing their student’s talent and feeling proud of them, feels insecure and unable to accept that their student may supersede them.
There is the new generation on the other side that is constantly being nurtured and is successful in every field. Meanwhile, we are getting our young generation to blow themselves up in suicide blasts. These children are then, most ashamedly, called ‘experts’. Recently, the Kuchhi women of Karachi narrated their stories, saying that their streets were so rife with gun violence that their children had begun to play with used bullets instead of marbles.
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