Daily Times

Most of us believe in celebrating birthdays. Birthdays are awesome, occasions where great company, good food and a bad cake are found together. On a personal level, that day is important for all of us because, cosmologically, it is meant to signify only one thing: our own priceless existence. By virtue of that, we want the rest of the seven billion people to recognise our extraordinary character and intelligence (or lack thereof). Typically, we reserve these special moments of cheerfulness, wellbeing and financial bankruptcy on our birthdays to be rejoiced only with people who (un)conditionally love us, incessantly pray for our happiness and inadvertently cause us to be absolutely broke. Despite that, with time we realise that these parties — when all family members have been forcibly and miserably placed together — are the richest, and the most cherished moments of our lives, an asset that nobody can seize from our memories except our old friend, Alzheimer’s disease. These memories are the reason that I still remember mine.

Religiously, people all around the world celebrate the birthdays of their prophets and the founders of their respective faiths. Particularly, Christmas is memorialised internationally to pay regards to Jesus Christ on the day of his birth as a festival of joy, hope, love and passion. Equally important for Muslims is the birthday of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), the only one who we believe is entitled to be known as the Mercy onto the worlds. Nonetheless, we always focus on our separate identity, so we honour His Big day, albeit rather differently. So, in Pakistan, it is celebrated with fear, tension, sectarian killings, bomb blasts, suicide attacks and lately, through blocking mobile networks all over the country. The last one is done as a marker of our renewed commitment against terrorism under the innovative leadership of Rehman Malik. Make no mistake; we used to do a much better job to celebrate the Prophet’s (PBUH) birthday. Then a general, who had a ‘unique esotropic vision’ and spoke from both sides of his mouth, became our president.

On a national level, by commemorating the days when our leaders are born, we attempt to unite the whole nation, even though we continue to revoke the country’s constitution repeatedly. Who does not remember the birthday of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah in Pakistan? It is one of our national holidays, which he shares with Jesus Christ. Even Dr Jamshed Dasti ‘PhD’ knows this one. At this point, it is important to note that Dr Dasti is an exceptionally talented politician and has invariably been underestimated by the media. Notwithstanding that he was not able to produce his certificate of graduation before the bench but, during his short appearance in the Supreme Court, it is reported that he was able to convince all the honourable judges of his ‘doctorate’ in Islamic Studies through his deep understanding of religion and the recitation of the longest chapters of the Quran!

After Jinnah, we also observe the birthday of Allama Muhammad Iqbal — the ‘only’ Urdu poet of the east — as a national holiday, for his vision about the Muslims of South Asia. In a way, we as Pakistanis are fortunate that Allama’s dream (Pakistan) and the rest of his philosophical outlook were not explained by Sigmund Freud. If the Jewish psychiatrist had published his book Interpretations of Dreams after Iqbal’s historic address in Allahabad, I am sure he would have been declared ‘blasphemous’ for psychoanalysing the great scholar.

In addition, our decision to observe them as national holidays is highly appreciated by the schoolchildren for getting their 263rd holiday of the year, government employees for getting another day off, and television anchors for providing them with an easy topic to discuss. It means that the anchorperson will not even consider doing his/her minutes of research, which is invariably performed for regular broadcasts.

Understanding our culture of worshipping dead people, the Pakistan People’s party, being the party of martyrs, celebrates the birthdays of all of its leaders — departed and alive — except the current president of Pakistan. It has helped them win most of the elections since its inception; their parties grow bigger every year while the party itself shrinks smaller and smaller. Getting encouraged by their success, Muttahida Qaumi Movement has also decided to play the same trick. Their Quaid cuts a big cake on his birthday every year in front of the camera and the leadership. Afterwards, he addresses the nation joyously for almost 36 hours straight. During this time, Karachi is extremely peaceful, calm and organised because of the absence of half of its population.

I wondered for a long time why Americans did not celebrate the birthday of George Washington, one of their founding fathers and their first president. They did not care about Abraham Lincoln’s date of birth either, the president who won the Civil War for them, reunited the country and abolished slavery. My guess is that the message in the struggle of their heroes was much more important to Americans than their zodiac signs.

The writer is a US-based freelance columnist. He tweets at @KaamranHashmi and can be reached at skamranhashmi@gmail.com