Intellesctuals Corner

By Maryum Arif.....

BOMBS HERE GUN THERE, BOMBS AND GUN EVERYWHERE

Karachi gives you so much pain at times,nothing else compares.As you read these lines,many people mourn the death of their loved ones.Not long ago there was a time when I was relatively safe. I was someone but my city however was never safe.Someone or the other was always being killed, shot murdered ,kidnapped,tortured or blown in to pieces and then burnt alive,but that was never me.

Those were just statistics and numbers.

Those were just faceless names and nameless corpses.

Life went on and the riots escalated. Yes,maybe they mattered to someone somewhere,but that someone wasn’t me.I couldn’t care less.

I kept living and believing that life wouldn’t pass me by. I would live to see all. I would live to become what destiny had chalked for me.

One thing I had picked up a long time ago from the cowards of my society was to never wear your heart upon your sleeve or your belief around your neck and this was the recipe of success after all.

Many years went by, the situation remained the same. I won’t say worse because I was all unaffected and overprotected.

It never mattered.

Pictures, weddings, birthdays, shopping, vacation all of these memories started piling up one after the other until life became insufferable perfection.

What was ‘gun point’ anyways, to best of my knowledge, it was a negotiation tactics.

I had a little world around me a social circle, Family means a world to me and I was selfobsessed since my childhood that’s what my mother tells me.

I suppose your mental peace gone in the blink of a second does little to your shake your belief system,No,this is what God wanted,salvation will come and we will redeem ourselves.so what if things are bad,they can’t always be bad,right? No they won’t even if they are,you won’t be affected.Don’t worry.

When it happened,it took me sometime to register the whole thing,A blast.

Those milliseconds before the scream were hours in my head.

Reality seemed unreal and unforgiving.

I was standing next to a corpse,can corpse bleed?

The familiar face had an expression of pain and shock,yet the eyes were blank.Did I know them? I had reason to believe i did. Someone was tugging the body, trying to revive It,it seems absurd.it was beyond redemption.

There was no hope,no salvation.

Someone was checking the ID card to identify and inform loved ones.The realisation hit me and a scream escaped my lungs.Suddenly I knew who it was but couldn’t speak.

Why?

Because it was me

Ahhh it was just a dream, many others weren’t this lucky.