We all love our country more than any other country in the world. It's what makes us who we are. Pakistani. It is the womb that gave birth to us and it is the soil to which we will return. Just like how we somehow feel the pain of a loved one, seeing our motherland bleed causes us great pain. Once again, our country has suffered a horrifying blow and the price was the blood and lives of its sons. You know the event that I refer to. It is the terror attacks that occurred in Lahore.
These days it seems that the mood in Pakistan keeps getting more and more gloomy. Even our national cricket and hockey teams seem very depressed. The poor guys feel so down that they haven't been able to perform at peak levels recently and as a result have suffered many (very humiliating) defeats. It seems we Pakistani's just can't get a lucky break these days.
Everything seems to working against us, in an almost conspiracy like manner.
As a nation, we are all suffering from depression. So whats the most basic strategy to counter this? Well, like I've been told many times by a countless number of people, the trick is to look at the positive side of things. Like they say, Always look on the bright side of life. That is what this weeks post is about, looking at all that is great about this country, aside from the fact that me and Sara Q. were born here. Here we go:
- This one is a no brainer. Freedom. We were born free. Now I know that given the conditions of the country we're not as free as we'd like to think, but thats our fault, we let things get like this.
- We are not a nation of quitters. We are a resilient nation. Obsession with a cause is what gave us the country and this obsession is what allows us to keep it. We've been hanging on by a thread since 1947 and no amount of predator missiles will make us let go.
- Our nation is overflowing with talent and potential. How many times have our kids gotten out of this world results in A-Levels? We won the cricket world cup and countless other tournaments on pure talent without the presence of any formal sports coaching facilities. Same for hockey. The day we tap into our potential will be the the day we take over the world.
- We have an amazing cricket team and hockey team. Sure, they're going through a rough patch right now, but we all know once they get rolling they'll knock down any opponent they're up against.
- Whats the one thing that any Pakistani returning from foreign lands crave? You know this, stop reading for five seconds and try to guess this. Chances are you'll need less than three. The answer is, mangoes. We've got all four seasons and each season brings with its own tasty produce.
- We are a nation blessed with beauty. Beautiful people surrounded by beautiful scenery. Whether its valleys surrounded by mountains blanketed in white and green or rolling plains with rivers carving through or historical locations with a million stories to tell, we've got it all.
- Our armed forces are top notch. They've got the training, they've got the tech and most importantly, they've got a dedication to protect this country that no other soldier in the world possesses.
This is not really the whole list. It's only a small fragment of it. But, I'd love to complete it or at least make it really long so comment like crazy with your reasons that make you say Pakistan Zindabad.
Waking up each day knowing that you are free and independent is in itself a great blessing of Almighty that HE has bestowed upon us. Just for a moment think about that bird in cage that wants to fly away freely in the sky but every time he tries he is hit by the walls of that cage and you will know how great blessing this is. We have been blessed with lots of things. Jus tas Talha has pointed out just a few in his post. What are we, who are we???? Do we deserve all these blessings???? What have we done to deserve all theses blessings??? And yet we come up complaining against our very own motherland.
ReplyDeleteWe are the thankless people, people with no gratitude for all the blessings that we have (nashukray log) (Can’t find out the exact English translation at the moment)
We don’t value all these blessings. Why??? The only reason that comes to my mind is that we take things for granted. We, in our own capacity, have not paid any price for this very freedom, for all the blessings that we are enjoying and yet complaining. It somehow makes me feel like we are the ones like that nation who was blessed with Man-o-salwa (the food used to come from heaven for them) and yet they ended up complaining about it.
We have inherited this freedom from our forefathers, who had sacrificed their everything, YES LITERALLY EVERYTHING, for this very motherland. We have not paid anything for this independence and like every inherited thing, we are but wasting and complaining about this very great blessing of Almighty.
It hurts a lot when I see people throwing the leftovers of their eatables here and there on the road and in the streets rather than throwing them in the dust-bins (Talha knows how much I hate this)and then we complain, " How dirty, the streets and roads are?" without even realizing that we are the ones who have made the roads and streets dirty. And we call ourselves the sophisticated, the modernized and the educated people. What hurts more is that when these sophisticated, modernized and educated people go to some place other than Pakistan, they end up throwing the wrappers in the dust-bins not on the roads and streets like they do with their motherland.
I see a lot of people complaining “What has this country given us?". Talha has already done a great job in explaining some of the blessings we are enjoying only because of our motherland. I will just add a few points:
This country has given you a place to call home, given you the right to live freely, given you the job to earn, given you education, taught you what is right and what is wrong. What else do we want from our motherland???? It has looked after us, brought us up in a free world, the world we call our own.
But what have we given to our motherland in return????
Breaking the laws, throwing wrappers here and there, always nothing but complaints about our motherland, spending our entire youth to serve some other country and then our old bones to be laid in this very soil. That is all that we have given to her and yet we complain what has this country given to us?????
Let us think about it, let us bring the change, let us be the change, let us stop talking and start acting, let us work for our country and lets repay (Which of-course we will never be able to do) our motherland. Let us tell the world that we are not a dead nation. Like Iqbal had said
"Nahin hay na-umeed Iqbal apni kisht-e-wiran say"
"Zara num ho to barry zarkhaiz hay ye matti saqi"
Let us join hands together and lets prove that the following verses are not for us:
“We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Shape without form, shade without colour
Paralyzed form, gesture without motion”
And I am sure a day not far away will come when we ll be at the top of the world, just as Talha mentioned at the end of his post.... The future is bright.
P.S The comment is not well sequenced and English is not up to the mark of the blog but still thats all I had in my mind
Pakistan Zindabad
First of all, wow. That is one healthy looking comment. It's actually longer than the post :P
ReplyDeleteI've actually been trying to come up with a response for the past two days. I don't have one except you're right. Somewhere along the line we all became ungrateful for what we had.
Actually, we're assuming we were grateful in the first place. The ancestors of those in power and those of influence are usually not of the people that sacrificed their homes, lives and families to get to this land. They were settled here. To them Pakistan was just a change of name of the territory they lived in. Some of them were too busy stealing land and resources while the bloodshed was going on.
Of course that was then and this is now. Back then, those select few may have been oblivious to the true meaning of Pakistan, but these days it seems we all are.
- Talha