Arshid Malik
This world has truly arrived at a juncture where personal goals are all that matter; it is a personalized world for all of us, one could say. We cherish the ideals of maximizing our own profits at the cost of all that is weak, having forgotten the very foundations of humanity. We have no concern for the child that goes hungry all day and night next door to us; and, after all, why should we mind since our lives are rested on the principles of pleasure. It is a global economy we are talking about and there is hardly any space for the global individual. Spaces, by all means and standards, have been choked. The best we can afford to do is glamorize the anguish and misery of people through modern day cinema and literature. Yes, we feed on the agony of one another. Our story is the saddest ever told and we are yet to realize that. We are a people, a species that has done, and is doing, its very best to wipe out all that characterizes its existence while tugging along everything else that sustains it towards a chasm of nothingness.
Misuse of drugs, rape, torture, suicides, unlimited suppression, hatred, haughtiness, self-centrism, an individualistic approach to life, racism, genocide, corruption; all of these are synonymous to our existence – it is the lexicon of our modern self. We are maimed, handicapped, contained, kept and ostracized by our own circumstance and yet we take pride in being “human”. Is there anything left for us to not be ashamed of that we should feel proud. How far can our stubborn and self-centred approaches lead us on the path to perdition? How far can we afford to go, eventually, when all that is good does not have anything to do with us?
Where do our doings take us, I am forced to ask? Consumed by our worldly passions and construed desires, what are we leaving in store for the children of the world. Our innocent kids, once they grow up, would be met with a world filled with fiery rage and ugly contempt. It is a harsh reality that could be the only salvaging factor for us – the whole race of a degenerating us.
I am a storyteller and my well is running dry, for my stories are fuelled by the true and indefatigable human spirit and the warmth of human blood. I am haunted by eerie shadows that might consume all that I have to tell you. I am wary of and caught between “who we are” and “who we could be”. And I seek your counsel and companionship to defeat the sorrows of the world.
While writing these lines I realize that I am running a risk, for I would be asked to shut up. After all, who has the spare time to read about the woes of the world when an entirely enticing present is occupying the human sphere? I would be ostracized one day for my humanistic endeavours but I sincerely do not mind the cost I would have to pay for telling the ugly truth in the face of all of you. I have reason enough to believe that a cabal of conspirators is sitting across the street fantasizing the fall of humanity and I just won’t let them have the best of it, come what may.
