Writer's Block - The Burning Candle by Bushra Hassan

Let my burning heart
Dry away my tears
Let my tormenting mind
Create new fears

Let the time of my life
Run faster than the world’s
Let world’s lashing tongue
snatch away my words

Let my mountains and my people
Be set on fire, crushed piece by piece
The angel of death will bow down
the burden of lives he has to seize

Let the schools burn
Or the children return
Safe or badly scarred
In nights of darkness and days of gloom
My home is lit by stars

Young heroes lay down their lives
Another orphan is born
Widows raise their heads with pride
The only way to mourn

Let them force their will
the fear may return
but they can’t blow my life away
the candle will always burn

SOAP BOX: It is not in our stars but in ourselves, that we are underlings! - Zahid Husain

“It is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings” Julius Ceaser by William Shakespeare. This statement so aply applies to us all today in Pakistan! I recall it from my days in college when we read the book during English Literature class that my Professor Mr. Humayun Tajik taught; In those days he would draw similes' between the then prevailing conditions in Pakistan and the book we were reading in class! And you know something they still prevail, only worse!

The Powerful, Influential, moneyed, landed, Industrialists, Businessmen, Feudals and the Establishment, have in fact grown in their greed for money and power! I am neither a sociologist or a psychologist, but somewhere in our gene pool there is this one that continues to contaminate and multiply throughout the Motherland like a cancerous virus that has now virtually infected all strata of our existence!

Our educational institutions are rotten to the core, from the gatemen to the Principals, they are all busy bending the rules and diluting the discipline of their environments that they hold sway over; it si no wonder that the products of our institutuions are what we encounter in our daily struggles, and this is repeaed year after year without abating so now we have a completely corrupt and morally defunct society. By society I include all levels of the citizenry.

The challenge that we all now face is how to rid ourselves of the cancer and stem the spread, and reverse the rot to improve the morality of our present citizenry, as well as to ensure, that no more generations go this route.

Has anyone any thought or ideas on the subject, because I sure don't!

With Love from Lahore

A hazy Autumn afternoon in Lahore. Look at the size of that tree folks!

*** This Message Has Been Sent Using BlackBerry Internet Service from Mobilink ***

Hum Sab Hain Dhaani - We are all Pakistani

A Youth Movement worthy of your support. Every single person can make a difference. Do your part, have your voice heard.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=190303951398&ref=share#/event.php?eid=190303951398

Lets unite as one and show them - these perpetrators who want to destroy our nation, who want to kill civilians, who didn't even stop at killing our women! - we will not lose our spirit.

Then lets do it, right?

Everyone, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, wherever you are working, studying, living, breathing, all your friends, all your relatives, begin your day with wearing a green shirt and hang the flag out of your window.

All across Pakistan, Middle East, UK, US, Australia, wherever you are, unite with your colours.

It is a mirror of Independence Day, the only day in the year we unite. The media HAS to take notice and we will write to them to take notice.

Make ALL of Pakistan and the world go green. Tell everyone. Call all Pakistanis on Orkut, on FB, on your email list. Go tell your neighbours. SMS your friends.

On November 9, every Pakistani seeing everyone else wearing green will feel united, will feel YES we ARE one.

We cannot go to war, we cannot go fight. But we can make a statement. One which will tell them 'you cannot destroy our spirit'.

I Spy: To Hope or NOT to Hope. That is the Question - Sadaf Zarrar

We are victims of Terror. Perhaps the most effected Victims of Terror in the world today. I have no doubt about that... We are not a terrorist producing factory, we our suffering because we did not, over time, select good leaders nor good allies. We are ignorant, indifferent... even stupid. We are NOT terrorists!

Apparently, Hilary Clinton thinks that if we really think Kerry Lugar Bill is nonsense that I in my personal limited knowledge firmly believe it is, than we shouldn't take aid and let it go. Now I only wish Mrs. Clinton or her countrymen were that generous in giving us a choice post 9/11. I wonder how much responsibility her country takes for the current state that our country is in. Yes, we played a royal role in creating this mess, but can the US just march in and ask for our pound of flesh?

And then ofcourse, apparent 2000kg or some insane amout like that of explosives have apparently been sneaked into Lahore, and a random truck apparently is roaming the roads as I type seeking ifs next few hundred casualties and a few thousand victims.

On top of it, what doesn't blow up crashes. So yes, there was a train collision near Landhi today also. Schools are closed, Cinemas aren't safe, Markets are deserted, People are glum... The mood in general is sombre.

The question remains, Shall I hope or shall I give it all up?? Where as every logical bone in my body (I dont have many of those) screams that I should, that I should try finding a way out somehow, that things will only get worst and so on so forth... The simple fact is, the only thing I have left that gets me going every day is hope and giving that up is perhaps worst than giving up on myself... it is giving up on everyone and everything I have known in this life and cared about.

The way I see it is very simple. I am not going to give up. I am not going to give up hope that this country and its people will be happy again! I will stand resilient to the point of pure annoyance. I mean what do I really have to lose? The war here is not of bombs and ammunition, it is about who believes more... If there are people who are insane enough to believe in something utterly groundless so pationately that they are willing to blow themselves up and end their lives, why should I not be insane enough to live my life to the fullest every day!

I am not denying that times are difficult, I am not asking anyone to be oblivious (despite that fact that I propagate paying less attention to our local news channels) all I am asking is, to live on and don't let your heart die before you do! At the end of the day, it is a battle of belief. And the one standing last will be the one who didn't give up!