Adil Najam
Eid approaches. This not not a time to be depressed. But these are depressing times. Eid deserves an upbeat message and positive pictures. Soon, we promise, we will have these for you. But today, I cannot get this picture out of my head.
This picture, taken by Emilio Morenatti of the Associated Press, haunts me. As it should. Taken yesterday (Sunday) in Islamabad, the caption reads: “A Pakistani boy waits to get a ration of donated food before Iftar, the time to break their fast, during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.”
Usually, we want our readers to comment on our posts. Today, I don’t care if you do or do not. What can you say? What can I say? What can any one of us say as we look at the expression on this child’s face. I do not care if you comment on this, but please do THINK about it. Maybe, as you think, you shoudl also listen to the “yeh bacha kis ka bacha hai” whcih we had first posted here.
For those of us who have lived long in Islamabad, this is one more reminder that this, too, is Islamabad!
I really do not like this rendition of ‘yeh bacha kis ka bacha hae’. It sadly cheapens the original. Such attempts can only further alienate people from Urdu and its poetry.
This past election, reshuffling of the government, was supposed to be about him…unfortunately we’re far too occupied with problems that aren’t of our own making to give any attention to this boy.
This picture reminds me on my trip last week to Makkah for Umrah. Makkah has five star hotels around the Haram which charge 900 dollars per night during Ramadan and they were fully booked. Just a few yards from these hotels, I took 100 packets of juice and fruit to handout one Iftar time. I was mobbed. People came from all directions to get a packet of juice, a banana, and and an orange. I could not have imagined the poverty in the great Saudi Arabia which is milking the world with 110 dollars per barrel for the oil. I was so upset at lack of dignity these people have to suffer in a rich state that I could not bring myself to do it again. I also remember the solemn and sad faces of Pakistani and Bengladeshi cleaning crew with green and orange uniforms cleaning the roads and courtyard outside the Haram in 125 degree heat for a 130 dollars per month. I was ashamed for all Muslims, including me, for tolerating this situation in the land of Prophet Mohammad and Abu Bakar who spent nights looking for needy persons.
The look of the child’s face is really haunting.
What is the life we promise this child with all this empty talk of religion and what is right or not right in religion. He would be better if you gave him a piece of bread.
May Allah help us all… Ameen