the inevitable 14th August post

So Independence Day rolls around again---strange, this is the only time I can remember when I wasn’t overly excited by it being 14th August. Why? Maybe it’s just the heat that’s making me sluggish, or the fact that I have become increasingly irritable over the years, or just that I am one of those ultra-cynical, disillusioned youngsters that are only happy when they can perceive the darkness and evil in something. I guess that would explain my watching the war scenes and murders in all those movies and drama series about the struggle for Pakistan; I just want something ghastly to ponder and cringe over. I remember the time when it was almost 23rd March, and there was this old black-and-white series on PTV called ‘Jinnah say Quaid-e-Azam’ shown late at night, about 2 or 3 a.m. it also happened to be a time for school holidays and hence my insomnia bouts, so I stayed up several nights watching it all: the murder attempt on Jinnah, the trains filled with corpses, Jinnah and his daughter parting ways (I simply hated her for what she did), etc, etc. What I needed, and still need, is emotion, sometimes so powerful it can only be expressed by silence. Then I sat down (it was near 5 a.m, I write the time down before starting), then stood up again, and wrote eight pages in red ink, in the shape of a letter to Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Maybe it was the lateness of the hour, the fatigue, or just the tension, but it was the first time I ever really comprehended what had been sacrificed for my homeland…and that is what had made me cynical. The fact that our state now is almost stagnant, our hopes are more pretentious than real, people change the channel when the national anthem comes on, the little flags that decorate houses near 14th August are strewn on the roads the next day (I wonder where they go eventually…down the gutter?)…no matter how many one picks up there are always more that are desecrated. It’s not like I’m utterly in despair; there are Pakistanis who are revered throughout the world and Inshallah there will be many more to come…it just seems like there’s a whole lot to do…there can be no rest, there can be no laziness, no indifference, no indolence…it’s going to take some time before action finally wakes up...I just hope I can be one of those to do something about it.