- Our stories and how each of them tells half of our tale, fraction of our truth
Every facet of life, like novels, has a story, a plot, a script, and characters that hide and/or reveal their minds through dialogues and acts. The actors may have all the applause, all the fame and all the glory but it is the writer who reigns supreme. Away from the spotlight and the thundering applause, he toils in his mind, holds conversations with imaginary heroes and villains, and lives and dies all the lives before they live, struggle, and perish in the hearts and minds of the listener.
The story of our beloved motherland has been told by many storytellers. In many of these stories ours is a land rife with evil and misery, in others it has a blighted past whose future brims with prosperity and peace. Some storytellers know their villains; some infuse their heroes with supernatural qualities. All of them tell stories which are an amalgamation of truth, fiction, imagination, fears and hope.
Ours story where Pied Pipers lull us
Our story where Pied Piper led us to abysses and caves needs neither reiteration nor repeat. We, the enchanted children were denied the blissful ever after. The happy ending, a complete concoction and an afterthought, escaped us. We never made it back from the extremes. We, along with our pied pipers, vanished forever. And the realisation of our quandary and its intensity of choosing the wrong pied piper gave us no solace, no moral lesson and no happiness.
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
Like all tales, our pied piper story speaks of humans and their foibles. Man, despite being the ultimate creature, gives in to the basest instincts like selfishness, hatred, fear and dishonesty. Whenever a group feels threatened and cornered, it seeks refuge in the soothing tunes of a pied piper. We are no exception. Whether the pied piper leads us to a ditch or zenith, we just seek refuge in his tunes and soulful trance.
Legend/Myth/Story of our Creation
Born of excruciating pain and in a dark, dreary time sans light, our beloved land outwitted, overpowered, defeated many a foes, seen many mighty empires crumble like castles of sand as it was their time to bite the dust and be remembered no more. Our land survived, and marched ahead even after being truncated. During its younger years it triumphed and savoured the success with pride and confidence and accepted the defeats with courage and hope.
The bruised, battered world which had recently fought its greatest, bloodiest war and barely made a return from the brink of annihilation had great expectations for our state. Our land was the new, energetic, a full of life new kid on the block. They called it Pakistan.
And this is where it stands, and this is how it stands.
Story of an ordinary, unremarkable country of ours
Every man has a story; rather, 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 and that is precisely how the memories of billions of dead corpses vanish forever along with their stories.
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.
Above is the internal monologue of Ahmed Ali, suicide bomber of Quetta bomb blast on 8th August, 2017 that took lives of more than 80 lawyers. His story, his brief life and its end is such stuff nightmares are made of. Will we remember it or will we forget it. That is the question we have been shying away from answering.