Death note of 29-years old Ahmed Ali who blew himself and 75 others last August in Quetta
17,503 terrorists attacks have taken place in Pakistan from 1 January 2001 to 17 October 2016, says the Quetta Commission Report, penned down by Justice Qazi Faiz Isa that inquired the 8 August suicide blast inside Sandeman Hospital, Quetta that wiped away an entire generation of lawyers in Balochistan
I am an academically weak polyglot who hailed from a broken family, my mother left my father — a former peon — and remarried another bloke. Those of you who’ll venture out on finding my identity and whereabouts, after I blow myself and 75 others up in billion tiny pieces, will surely unearth the above information. So, I am leaving this note to tell what you’ll never find even after probing my home, my belongings and my dead body.
Every man has a story. Nah, every man is a story. Those who lived an extraordinary life, accomplished exceptional feats their stories became legends. Those who lead an ordinary mundane, drudgery-filled existence, even their grandchildren find it hard to recall their name, let alone their stories. That is how the world rolls, dearest sirs and ma’ams, and that is precisely how the memories of billions of dead corpses vanish forever along with their stories. I and my story will be one amongst them.
As you all know, death has become a frequent visitor to our land. It comes, takes away scores of us way before our time as and when it pleases, and visits us again without a warning, sans a knock. Those who perish are collected, cried over, buried and kept in prayers by few loved ones. Those who survive wait for their turn, hoping it will never come, worrying it might be just around the corner. For others, another tragedy spared them. Death comes to all, we say. May it come when it is time, we whisper.
To live and then die, this is precisely what life is made up of. To die for a cause, for an ideal, for a goal, and for one’s progeny is what many men have been doing since the very first dawn of civilisation. Right and wrong is only a question of perspective. It is how and from where you look at the world.
Aimless, idle, dejected, I searched for my true calling. Unlike my namesake, who penned down ‘Twilight in Delhi’ — a treatise on a terminal culture and mortally wounded way of life — I am all set to become herald of doom and devastation for many in whose world I had no stake, no standing, no place. I am neither brainwashed, indoctrinated or under influence of some drug or spell. I am, to tell the truth, just a pawn in a game I don’t have an inkling of.
Being an ordinary, unremarkable man I led an ordinary, unremarkable life. However, I plan to achieve something incredible by my last deed. There will be mourning in every district of my province and the void will last for generations to come. Everything has been planned in graphic details. The plan goes thus: the killing of supreme black crow will lead to the congregation of hundred and above crows. As the crowd begins to thicken I will detonate. Unlike chess, I’ll be the pawn who’ll take the rooks, the knights, the bishops and a score of other pawns.
So, that is my story. Although, I’ll be brushed aside as just another suicide bomber who blew himself and killed innocent people. However, I’ll be remembered as a nameless, faceless, heartless monster who was driven by vengeance and ennui, steered by ideology and hatred, and who made world a more sadder, more miserable place.
Well, that is it. I’ve said what needed to be made known. I confide in you my story. Alas, I would’ve written a better one. But since I didn’t. I own the one I leave behind.
Yours, Ahmed Ali, an ordinary and unremarkable man in every respect.
An abundance of Ahmed Alis
17,503 terrorists attacks have taken place in Pakistan from 1 January 2001 to 17 October 2016, says the Quetta Commission Report, penned down by Justice Qazi Faiz Isa that inquired the 8 August suicide blast inside Sandeman Hospital, Quetta that wiped away an entire generation of lawyers in Balochistan. The whole report is an eye-opener for everyone of us. The commission raised serious questions on performance of security agencies, the debacle that is NACTA, the dead as dodo NAP, 81 absent doctors on day of blast, an interior minister meeting and chitchatting with proscribed leaders, and an overall absence of governance that rules our fatherland.
The need for collective soul-searching is more than ever or else we’ll be at the mercy of hundreds of Ahmed Alis, who’ll keep on coming and blowing themselves and others to smithereens. The battle, dearest sirs and ma’ams, is not for land or resources, it is for souls and hearts. About time that we win our Ahmed Alis back.