Shades of Grey

Growing up life is pretty simple, things are absolute; things are perfect. There is right and there is wrong; no betwixt or between. If you were raised in the Pakistan of the 80’s then: all Indians were bad, women who wore short sleeves were wicked, no one drank alcohol (ever), there were no homosexuals (at least not in Pakistan), there was no child abuse, Pakistan was the land of the pure, men in green descended to help us win our wars, good people prayed five times a day, no one divorced or if they did, the women were wicked. All evils resided in the West; pop culture, drugs, extra marital relations, nudity. All people except Muslims are condemned to go to hell. These are not generalizations, these were my beliefs.

Imagine the horror I felt when in my twenties one by one all my bubbles start to burst. As I step out of the school room and into real life, I am dumbfounded with the lies and deceit that I have been taught for sixteen years of my academic life. What plagues me more is that although, through some unfortunate circumstances my bubbles are no more, most of the people around me still live peacefully in these cocoons. We do not question the relevance of these obsolete teachings, the teachings that have a way of condemning people and situations in either one bracket or the other. If you question your religion or your country you are labeled a non believer and an unpatriotic person respectively. It is mind boggling easy for us to condemn people; secular humanists as lost souls and left liberals as amoral creatures.

Life cannot be divided in black and white. The fairy tales and the movies will always have a villain; an all out bad guy and the hero a “picture of virtue”. Ever consider that actually we are all bit of both. In each and every one of us resides the tendency to do good and be evil; and in the course of our lifetimes we exhibit both behaviors. There will be triggers that will bring out the worst in us and we will be the villains of our story; then and for other parts or some other people we may be good guys. Can we dispense with our habit of labeling everyone and everything in our lives as either good or bad? Right or wrong. Can we assume that there may be a great shade of grey in the middle, where good and bad become relative terms; relative to scenarios and people who experience them.

It is unnecessary for something to be perfect in order for us to love or accept it. Would we be less Pakistanis if we are taught the real history of this country or if we questioned our hero’s and their motives? Would we cease to be Muslims if we read the real history of our religion and its evolution? Would it not enhance our understanding of who we are as a people and what we really practice and preach? Doesn’t knowing taking away the pain of deceit and mistrust. What if we were to introspect and admit to the evil that lives in all of us and begin to reconcile with the evil that resides in others around us. Can we, in real life, see people in a more tolerant shade of gray, rather than the harsh shades of black and white?

Sometimes great understanding and learning comes from great trials and tribulations. I have seen pious drunks and corrupt saints. I have seen believers who never performed a single ritual in their life. I met with satan cloaked in sheep’s hide, I met sinners who made me believe in God. The lesson I learnt was this: The way to live life is to keep an open mind to the things we experience and people we meet; the knowledge we gain and the knowledge we have. Black and white is great in theory but life is a lighter shade of grey.

“Perfection is not for the pure of soul; there may be virtue in Sin”

- Khalil Gibran

Letter to Jinnah

Dear Jinnah,

Your Pakistan is turning 65. Some would say that in the lives of nations 65 means they are still in the infant stage, others may argue that there are nations who now are well on their way to development and prosperity in lesser time. No one is implying that Pakistan hasn’t moved forward in these years since its birth, but let us admit that it has suffered from stunted growth.

It lost its founder when it was a few months old, and suffered a war when it was less than a year old. In 65 and 71, again it was subjected to the tyranny of wars, the latter resulting in an amputation. It had to go, Mr. Jinnah, when a body cannot be fair and just, cuts down the blood supply to its own organs; it develops the gangrene of political dissent. Finally, at 26 we were able to agree on some foundation for this country by providing it a constitution. Why were we so late? But of course Mr. Jinnah, there were vested interests of the people at the helm, besides after you went away we suffered a major crisis in locating our North. After years of Musical chairs between the Army and the civil governments, I am proud to inform you that we did become a Nuclear Power. Wait, well that too isn’t without controversy.

On its 65^th birthday the picture of your country, Mr. Jinnah, is very grim. Its people are crippled under the weight of an economic crisis which continues to worsen by the minute. Your average person cannot even afford the basic needs, electricity is rare, and his children are many; health care is an unheard of concept, for him education is a luxury and life is cheap.  

Mr. Jinnah, your city, Karachi has its streets washed in blood every few days, owing to power tug-of-wars. Due to this dirty power play, on this eid and on the rest to come, many children will not have their fathers to give them eidi. A similar fate, for many Baluch families, who are still looking for missing loved ones. But this is not the worst news yet, the worst is that the people of this beautiful land have become morally corrupt and ethically depraved; they are numb to the sufferings caused by their own actions of intolerance and dishonesty. They are willing to take a life if it does not adhere to their religious or political point of view. Your people are in a race to get their hands on “more” by any means. Our rulers simply depict what we have become callous & dishonest.

Mr. Jinnah, you turn your face away, like a father betrayed by his own son. Wait sir, this bleak picture may be true, but there is more. Pakistani’s may have lost their course but the soil they are made of is resilient and courageous. We may bear battle scars and are travel weary, we may have lost our tolerance to accept the different opinions and ways of life but we are still, at our core, sons and daughters of this soil. I desperately cling to the hope that these dire circumstances will wake in us some humanity, some degree of tolerance. The sickness we witness everyday will make us abhor violence in all its forms, that we will again believe in honesty and integrity of work. I desperately pray, that we will rise from these dark days a better people and the dream you dreamt for us, will ultimately come true.

Defining Success

These times are competitive. I feel we are infected with the virus of discontentment. Nothing is what it should be. The neighbour has a bigger car, better house, vacations in Europe, in short; has it all. You compare yourself to these people and always fall short. There is that bad after taste when you meet someone, who you perceive has half your brain size and three times your pay cheque.

When I started earning, I used to imagine that the guy above my pay scale had it all. If I just had that much I would certainly be happy. Time went by and as I grew in my pay scale, the more discontent with it I became. There was always someone ahead of me, ahead in the game. There was always a better model of phone on the market, a new car, a new destination. Keeping up meant cutting throats to get to the top faster, earn more in order to acquire more. Material things, which give a huge high for a day and then the euphoria ends. We try to fill the inner vacuums of our life with things, feeling if we just had this one “Thing”, we will certainly be happy, finally content.

So who is truly successful? Capitalism would define a successful person as the one with the most material possessions. There is no doubt that for most things, having a stack of dough helps.  But suppose that you have reasonable means to a comfortable life. Where reasonable doesn’t not include every luxury but some; would you consider yourself a success or a failure?

In words of John Wooden, one should not try to compete with everyone, if you become too engrossed in the things over which you have no control it will adversely affect the things over which you do have control.  It is human nature to compare ourselves to others, it is when we feel the sting of jealousy that we need to step back and understand that we all are unique in our capabilities.  We all have our own crosses to bear, on the outside all we see in others is the perceived success that we want to see.

As long as we give our very best at everything we do we should consider ourselves successful.  There will be people who will have lost, having won and others who will be the real winners, although to others they may have lost. As long as at the end of the journey one can look back with contentment, you have lead a successful life.