These days, we Pakistanis don't really think 'what's happening,' we think more like 'what the **** is happening?' Law and order situation was never really one of our strong points, but who knew it will see such lows. A bomb blast in some random market of Kohat suddenly starts looking a simple thing when you hear that your army's head quarter has been attacked. The story doesn't stop there, Taliban tells you their new targets with exact information of how they will attack and next day you hear that they were able to do all that successfully. In complete shock you hear the news on T.V., and then it really doesn't help when Rehman Malik comes up on T.V. mainly to mention that 'there was no security fault, it was just that attackers had their planning,' and you are left with thinking 'urrggh, only if they hadn't planned, our security plan would have worked!!!!'
What really shook your soul is the blast at a University which ironically isn't named as University of Christianity or Judaism, it's named as Islamic international University. The next thing you know is Government closes down all educational institutions for a week, and you wonder 'isn't this exactly what Taliban wanted us to do?' Some days later, you are working and somebody informs you about a blast in Peshawar which has taken 90 lives, you certainly don't have a heart of stone that you hear this news and still manage to work normally.
Seeing the events of last few weeks, I wonder if I would have been studying, will my mother would have allowed me to join back my university, wouldn't I have felt the fear of dieing in one such blast while having a light conversation with friends in university's cafe. If I would have been living in Peshawar, wasn't there a chance that I could have been in that market? But then if I wasn't there, other people were, and these people weren't orphans with no one to look forward to their return. Who knew what they were planning for their lives.
We are now frustrated with the face of Rehman Malik, his endless prating and we hope that one day an astray bullet will find it's target. But more importantly, a cloud of fear is upon us. A fear of becoming a part of one such blast and more than that, a fear of loosing a loved one on any random day.
In the last many weeks, I can see the many canceled trips to big shopping malls, large gatherings, nearby parks and women-only markets. I see parents accompanying their kids just to give some additional security, as if they alone can detect that bomb, that suicide bomber and save their kid. Honestly speaking, when we leave home in the morning, the only thought that comes to mind is if 'I would be coming back?' or in case I die today, will my family would get the dead body or will I be buried being marked as unidentified, with none of my loved ones around me? Death was never more real to us.
Credit does go to Taliban for doing their jobs so well that finally we take every day of life as a bonus instead of just any other thing. But they can do whatever they can but unless and until they nuke all of us, they can't take away the will of living on from us. They can't stop us from dreaming for a brighter and sunny tomorrow, they can't stop us for trying for a life full of joys, they can't stop a youth from falling in love or a graduate to get his first job or a baby to get born or a writer to write the story of his life or a life to go on. That's the best thing about life, no Taliban can stop it from happening. All Pakistanis are still getting on with their lives and looks forward to a tomorrow which will bring a better news.
So following Anne Frank, I look forward to getting old with a face full of wrinkles, with hairs as white as ice and with a long line of countless grand kids. In the to-do list of life, I am done with a graduation ceremony and a first pay cheque, but I still have a long list to fulfill which includes everything from falling in love to a wedding ceremony to seeing so many firsts of my own kids. If I do die tomorrow then that's what is suppose to happen and I will die peacefully knowing that at no stage of my life, I lost my spirit of living on or my desire of dreaming.
Pakistan Zindabad , Pakistan Paindabad.
