Ramadan Reflection 2: Other Side
Festive lights, succulent meals and excited chattering, light up the nights of the city of Lahore. The days are drowsy as clouds hide a sleepy sun. Comfortable beds in air-conditioned rooms and warm rasais (blankets) are close companions during the day as TVs are turned on at night. Well-ventilated houses and glimmering cool cars mask the crippling heat that should be turning the grass brown. The should-be-brown grass is green owing to the fact that it has lived many summers under the harsh sun and it has learned to be hardy. Alas, this very quality of adaptation brings about a much harsher truth. A truth that is seen and unfortunately also ignored by many. There is another side of Lahore. Behind every succulent meal is a family that starves; behind every cackle of excitedly chattering teenagers are children with hoarse weak voices thirsting for a sip of water. In lieu of comfortable beds, impoverished families take turns waving wooden fans to cool each other as one would imagine them huddling together on cold nights. In lieu of sleek cars, little children walk the streets begging for enough to get a snack to eat. Every big family function I attend, we have these things we’ve lovingly called ‘drawing room discussions’. The term is used very specifically. Because in these discussions, issues ranging from corrupt politicians and army officers to well, just that, are discussed and how such people plague the country. I have no issue with discussing problems. But I feel that if you discuss something and don’t act upon it, which is the case, then there’s little to no point in doing it. So I take little part in these discussions. Pakistan is a land that is plagued by many problems but has managed to totter on bravely. It is also, unfortunately, a microcosm that represents the world as a whole. The only difference is that the problems here are more visible. They are also ignored by most who live here and those who don’t have them but they are visible. Oh, so visible. Dr Seuss once wrote, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.” And I am guilty of this. I could say I have been desensitized to the problems affecting my country but that would be making an excuse. I have for so long thought I care. But is passive caring, really caring? I sit by and watch as the world descends into conflicts and murders, madness and inhumanity. A picture has gone viral on Facebook and it says, “When you need to have hundreds of protests just to tell the world that bombing children is not ok, that is when you know humanity has failed.” There’s an article that has also gone viral: in a cruel and unpredictable turn of events, one Australian woman has lost relatives in two Malaysian Airlines disasters. And I feel nothing. It scares me. This Ramadan, I am trying to find the compassion within myself that I cannot see. Compassion for my fellow human being. Love for my brothers and sisters. After all: Ted: “Love doesn’t make sense. You can’t logic your way into or out of it. Love is totally nonsensical, but we have to keep doing it or else we’re lost and love is dead and humanity is just packing it in. Because love is the best thing we do.” ~How I Met Your Mother - Season Nine - Episode 22 The End of the Aisle People can be so compassionate; so unconditionally loving. In Pakistan, we have a philanthropist named Abdul Sattar Edhi. Out of a small room that he bought with the money made by his many jobs, he founded the Edhi Foundation – a social service system that caters to the wounded and sick, trains nurses (40,000 so far), provides homes for children (50,000), amongst many other things. And these services are free of cost. Edhi learned about suffering, pain and death while he cared for his mother. This process shaped the rest of his life. In his book, he explained, "As a child, my mother taught me to give to those in need. Now, she taught me common social welfare... She created a burning desire in my heart to care for humanity the way I had done for her...The first night she spent buried in the ground, I promised my life to the service of mankind." He lost his grandson Bilal who was scalded by burning water thrown on him by a woman staying in one of the Edhi centers (this woman had a mental illness) and died a few weeks later. And he didn’t stray from his path. Instead he continued just as firmly, if not more so than before. He told the Daily Times: "I was young and uneducated. I did not have the resources to change the system. But, I had a desire to help those in need and help them get their rights. Even today, I am still helping them as much as I possibly can, and in every possible way. I talk to them, guide them, and that is how I spend my day." - See more at: http://spotlightenglish.com/listen/abdul-sattar-edhi/#sthash.zfLIpPsv.dpuf This past year, I've been shown so much compassion by people who’ve barely known me. People who I just met. Compassion from brothers and sisters who seem like Godsends. It has shattered the bubble of disillusion I was living in. And has made me want to spread the love. “And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the Earth, "You owe me." Look what happens with love like that. It lights up the sky.” ~Rumi In face of all of this unconditional love, there is one thing that weighs heavily on this weary mind of mine. Allah T’Allah loves us more than all the creatures in the world. He doesn’t say you owe me. He loves us more than the sun loves the moon. He loves us more than, to put it more literally, than our parents do; more than my brothers and sisters at the Islamic Center do. This Ramadan, I am trying to find the compassion that makes humanity humane. The compassion that I am ashamed to say, I seem to have lost. And I want this to be a start where I can spread the love I have received. So the next time the wafting smell of juicy pakoras and samosas reaches your nostrils or the sweetness of a date on your tongue, remember those who do without. And keep them in your prayers. JazakAllah Ramadan Mubarak ~~~~Danish Aamir