Daily Times

So, we have weathered yet another hostile year of pandemic and turmoil, haven’t we? In the turn of events, our conventional wars ushered us to unfamiliar horizons where battles of dominance morphed into combats of survival from appalling germs and infections; we’ve now gotten to know those deep trenches where the sun is fading, prospects turning bleak and humanitarian crises surging. We saw a pandemic, starting in 2019, stretching out its tentacles even farther, backed off halfway only to reincarnate later from Corona Virus to Omicron, roaring! Another twelve months went past where the hospitality industry saw hide and seek of shut-open, people were locked up in their houses and markets closed. The most afflicting part, however, was to see ravenous Afghan children, dilapidating healthcare system, the economic meltdown of the aid-dependent economy, food insecurity worsened by famine, no shelter during harsh winter, and war-waged country being put to another stint of annihilation routine: all add up to stage an unprecedented misery.

We saw almost all of it: strange shades, disfavouring colours, screaming chaos, agitating upheavals, and merciless bullets. What we couldn’t see was a moment, missed, with an opportunity to revive the love in its most intrinsic form: pure, gentle, and virtuous. We missed that one last chance, perhaps, to ensure we put a full stop to the life of ours, that is a dead life: with dietary habits that are absolute health perils, spendings that are unnecessary, occupations that are immoral, behaviours that are toxics and last but not least the flaunting of love that does not even hate!

Our conventional wars ushered us to unfamiliar horizons where battles of dominance morphed into combats of survival from appalling germs and infections.

While 2022 is being celebrated with fervour and ardour to stamp perfect Pakistani-styled merrymaking, what do we think about failing to achieve what we had set off to in 2021?

Well, honestly, I assume, we could revive the whole concept of lost Pakistani society’s distinctive ethos we once accommodated. Hence, we could have said goodbye to much more than mere 2021 that we didn’t, and unfortunately, did the total contrary!

Starting from exuberant spendings on weddings, I could’ve said bid farewell to “lavish marriage functions” during the lockdown and resurrected the simplicity culture, but I chose to re-open marquees for I thought the luxurious bread and butter of a small group should be preserved in the first place no matter if it cost us a poor father draining his life-long-savings into his daughter’s three-hour ceremony. I could’ve channelized an unbeatable culture of perpetual-food supply for hapless communities by structuring up community-run food supply agencies, but I rather exhausted myself into early bird ration drives for parasites (even in 2021) and sat home late evenings only to dig out best-food-deals to be delivered all day during confinement times. I could’ve worked out my life skills while offices and institutes had been put to work from home/online studies, but I chose to stay couch potato and opted to remain sucked into the tractor beam of social media gimmicks & rather I aced in memes-making. I could’ve boycotted the stockpiling, staunched the backbone of swindlers once for all, and scared a blinking life out of tax-defaulter-mafias, but I made sure to inflate the inflation bubble as much as possible by buying more, and spending unrestrainedly on eateries, shopping items and mere shows offs and decorations. I could have pushed down the traitors, the double-dealers into black holes of accountabilities, but I provided them impunities, shelters, NROs while granting those amnesties. I, being Govt., could’ve introduced ‘mini Silicon Valleys’ to promote tech. & innovation across the country, but I rather opened up more CSS and ISSB academies to add value to the impotent culture of innovation excellence.

I could’ve set up free hospitals, vocational training institutes, rehabilitation centres, mental asylums for a vulnerable common man barely meeting his both ends, but I thought the development of the real-estate sector would be a far lucrative option, so I let that poor vulnerable man die on road or go suicide, and let the timber mafia, housing societies with zero geotechnical engineering studies go cut and loose. I could’ve shunned bogus, outdated and fraudulent educational culture by swopping it with state-of-the-art modes (both through investment in human resources and technology), but I rather stuffed my educational hubs with more plagiarised research work, zero educational excellence, fake rankings, and below-par faculty members. I could’ve formulated strategies to preserve climate by taking desperate measures but I chopped more trees to infest terrains with skyscrapers whereupon annihilated nature, fauna, and flora (as a result, tens of cities including federal Capital have been brought to the verge of ultimate destruction in terms of urban planning and structural integrity). I could’ve helped book culture to revive the last year, but I uprooted it, thrashed it in the face, and swapped it with more gadgets’ shops and eateries. I could’ve popularized sports culture for a healthy society but I shunned it by cherry-picking and nailed the whole meaning of physical activity into cricket, as a result, playing fields vanished off the face of cities and drugs became the new norm among youngsters!

Harsh? Piercing? Self-explanatory?

Well, this is what it is, reality, mirror, or you name it! The 2022 celebrations were excellent as always; the shibboleths were echoed brilliantly and so were the slogans being raised all over the arena, but is this it? Would we want to spend 2022 just like the way we spent 2021? Now, this is the time to ask ourselves, are we any good to go and set to brave out hardships, challenges, and unseens in the face of yet another intimidating year, 2022? Would we do our bit to change the odds into opportunities, workout challenges into prospects, and do away with exuberant spending, unhealthy routines, corruption and hates to say the least? While the New Year’s Resolution Cookies are served and new promises are made, what is our promise to ourselves? Think, please.

The writer is based in Islamabad. He can be reached at mbilal.isbpk@gmail.com, FB/mbilal.16