 |
| ...We are complicit in their ordeal... (Source: Dawn.com) |
But this, today is not a go at anyone. This is an appeal; an appeal of a sad Pakistani to those other Pakistanis who are so much more interested in the mundane activities of their daily lives which appear so shallow now. 1600 people, Pakistanis, are dead. Gone in a stroke, without anyone really caring for them. 40,00,000 have lost all that they ever possessed. These people have seen their houses just falling apart, breaking and ultimately being consumed by the raging torrents of flood water. Just imagine for a moment, that one day you come home from whatever party you've been to, only to find your house just crack open, and being swallowed by the earth. Sounds surreal doesn't it? And yet it has happened not very far from us; to 40,00,000 people. This an appeal to the Pakistanis' conscience which has been numbed from the denigration of our societal fabric caused by the war, and the bombs, and the suicides, and the mass hysteria, and the inflation, and the uncertainty, and the political instability and God knows what else. This is an appeal to you, to please take cognizance of the plight of those people who do not have enough water left in their bodies to shed tears; who are mere ghosts of human flesh.
This is an appeal to all those who have never really cared because they have never been put through this devastating trauma, who have never seen this devastation personally. Thank God for that but remember 40,01,600 people have seen it, and have also seen their lives torn into tiny pieces of nothingness. Today the whole country bleeds, not just Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa or Punjab. Balochistan has also been devastated, and Sindh is in the eye of the crisis.
This is an appeal to those, who will read this, yawn, and switch to an entertainment website. Remember, we are all complicit in the suffering of all those 40,00,000 people out there who try to sleep but can't, because they depended on help that never came. Forget that our politicians are ass*****; forget that they are duty-bound to help those in need; forget that they do politics at the cost of 4 million lives; forget that they only visit the flood affectees because it gives them photo op sessions; forget that the rulers think that the masses are plain stupid who will be fooled into believing anything they are shown on PTV (and yes, this is directly for you Mr Gilani; the fake medical camp was a stroke of genius); and forget that God will help you, because God will only help when you want to help yourself.
You can make a difference. It's never too late. Donate something, even if it is a pack of biscuits. Who knows you might help some poor child fend off his starvation for a couple of hours; and a couple of hours, is making all the difference in the lives of 40,00,000 people marooned in agony in Pakistan.
