Think-Box

Wake Up Call

2005-10-26T12:26:00.000-07:00

Saturday
Ramazan 3
8:45 am

The serenity of the northern Pakistan and Azad Kashmir was broken ( literally ) by the trembling of the crust of the earth that was caused by the shifting of rock beneath the surface.The catastrophe was immense - more than 50000 people are feared dead , 2.5 million homeless and another million suffering from intense emotional suffering caused by the disaster.As I write this article , the weather condition is getting worse by the minute and the rescue operations highly affected.

The spirit of Karachiites in relief efforts was remarkable. People ; men , women , rich , poor , all were gathered at one place to contribute in their own little way toward the relief efforts for the victims of the quake. There are , however , people everywhere who even in the times of distress seek their own personal motives by increasing the prices of the goods - these are people with no conscience really.

So , what do we learn from this ? The other day I was watching the TV program 'End Of Times' in which Dr Shahid Masood was enumerating the omens before the day of judgement and was flabbergasted to find out that almost all of them are normal occurences in the present world. One of them was the frequency of natural disasters particularly earthquakes , and ofcourse when we see the recent disasters caused by nature , it only strengthens the facts already mentioned in the Quran.Isn't it time we opened our eyes and accept the fact that Allah is not happy with us ? That He with all the power in the world made us realise that we are on the wrong path - the path to damnation ?

We're so involved in the banal humdrums of our materialistic world that we have forgotten the purpose of our lives - how many of us offer all our prayers ? how many of us recite Quran ? how many of us respect our parents ? It is the time we realized that life is fragile and ask ourselves if we are prepared for inevitable ?

Time is running out ... wake up before its too late !

Never Stop On The Highway - A Story

2005-08-22T02:32:00.000-07:00

The RangeRover traveled into the angry swell of darkness.The headlights beaming as far as one could see. The fresh night air whipped through the open windows of the Rover as it skimmed past the long trees on either side of the highway.The cool breeze felt good against the moistened white shirt from excessive perspiration.Radio was on and Bryan Adams was crooning away ‘ lets make a night to remember ….’Indeed John had made a night to remember.The scent of his wife’s perfume on his shirt felt refreshing. All of a sudden car’s fuel indicator started flashing and it came to a sudden halt.

‘Fuck!’ John exclaimed. ‘ I’m low on fuel . This car had to breakdown in the middle of the fuckin’ highway.Piece of shit doesn’t even have a reserve for petrol. And yet they talk about Rover being a reliable car! ’
He got out of the car and looked around to see if there was a car coming by.None. He waited.After like a couple of minutes he saw a car coming his way but the car sped away from him without stopping.
He cursed himself again .Three other cars passed away from him without stopping and he had given up hope and decided that he’d rather spend the night in the Rover and wait for the morning to get the lift. As he turned to get into the Rover , he saw another car traveling toward him . He had to react . He waved his hand to stop the car but in vain as the car traveled past him . After traveling a certain distance the car stopped and reversed back until it was parallel to John’s Rover.

‘Looks like your car brokedown in the middle of the God forsaken highway,’ the man said in his coarse voice.
‘ Yeah , it ran outta fuel ,’ John replied.
‘ Jump in , I’m heading north to Kahore . I’ll drop you to the nearest motel,’ said the man eager to help.
‘ That’d be great ,’ John said taking a sigh of relief.
He turned toward his Rover , opened the door and took his wallet out of the dashboard. Just when he was about to close the dashboard he saw a knife enclosed in a sheath stuffed at the back of the dashboard . He picked it up thinking it may be required.
He pulled his handbrake down and pushed the Rover until it was off of the highway.He pulled the handbrake up again , shut off the door and walked swiftly across the highway toward the car waiting for him.
The driver started the engine and they were on their way.
The man driving the car had dark hair and dark eyes radiating energy that somehow contradicted with darkness all around.
After like a momentary silence , John broke the ice .
‘ My name is John ,’ he said eager to start a conversation .
‘ I’m Richard ,’ the driver replied making an effort really to talk.
There’s a flash of lightning in the background followed by a rumbling sound of thunder.And there was rain splattering across the windshield blurring the view of the highway.Richard , however , was oblivious to the obscurity of the night and even with all the rain around , somehow didn’t affect him to deviate from his deep thought until a lorry coming toward them almost hits the car and Richard had to make a quick reaction to avoid it.
‘ What the heck are you doing ? You almost got us killed there,’ John bursts with anger.
‘ I’m sorry , didn’t see it coming , ’ said John obviously embarrassed.
‘ Ofcourse , you didn’t ,’ said John flatly. ‘ You don’t even have your wipers on .’
After another long silence , John asked , ‘ What happened there ? ’ pointing toward Richard’s bruised knuckle.
‘Never mind ,’ Richard replied not wanting to communicate.
‘Are you sure ?’ John asked again , inquisitive.
‘ Okay , if you really wanna know I’ll tell you . I hit my wife that’s why the bruised knuckle, ’ replied Richard feeling ill at ease.
‘ But why ? ’ John asked almost spontaneously.
‘ Well , I found her cheating with another man and when I confronted her about it , she lied and accused me of not trusting her. I couldn’t control myself so I hit her. I mean what would you do if you were in the same predicament ? ’ asked Richard.
‘ I’d kill her, ’ John replied rather coldly.
Richard couldn’t believe his eyes nor what he heard. The man who looked calm and collected initially was a completely different person now . Behind a friendly facade he saw a man with intense rage .

‘ Yeah , right , ’ came from Richard’s mouth almost as if he wanted to say something else.‘ Let me check what the radio has to say about the weather ,’ Richard continued not pushing on their current discussion and turned his radio on and manually tuned to various stations available until he found what he was looking for.
‘This is Late Night News with Laura Johnson ,’ said the woman in her crackling voice.
‘I’ll start off with International news first …’ the woman kept on blabbing away about Bush’s war on terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq.
So much for international news , Richard thought to himself.
He looked at John and wondered if he really meant what he had said earlier.
‘In the local news tonight ,’ the woman now said after a short commercial break,‘a man found his date murdered when he came to pick her up for dinner. The man identitfied himself as George told the police that he found the woman raped and murdered. Police are certain that the man responsible for the murder is the woman’s ex-husband John who had already killed three men latest one being his ex-wife , Jane ,who had divorced him because of his mental illness. Police had also told the reporters that the man was admitted to the asylum as he had fits of anger and was very dangerous. Police also said that the man escaped the asylum a couple of days before his ex-wife’s death and police was in constant search for him.According to the latest news, police have discovered that after murdering his ex-wife he escaped in her Range Rover and was last seen wearing a white shirt in ‘Have Inn’ on the National Highway…’

Richard was flabbergasted . The realization that he was sitting with a homicidal maniac was enough to freak him out. He jammed his foot on the brake until his car screeched to a halt.
‘You fuckin’ bastard !….you killed your wife ! …..madman ! you belong in that asylum,’ Richard blurted out and put his hand into his pocket to take out his cellphone. At that very moment John took out his knife from the case and stabbed it directly into the heart of the Richard and continued stabbing it until his dark shirt got even more darker. And John yelled in anger filled with blissfulness , ‘ I’m not a madman !’

P.S :

As a newbie story writer I'd really like your comments , be it constructive or absolutely critical.It is however noted that you may find grammatical/syntax errors in it and that's purely because the story is still unedited.
Thanks ,
Peace.

Breaking News

2005-07-30T03:33:00.000-07:00

Nate : Hey Ziggy , whats up ?
Ziggy: Not a whole lot . Did you watch the news today ?
Nate : No , I don’t watch the news . I mean I used to but now the news has become so predictable .. Breaking News isn’t all that breaking for me now.So,whats new in the news?
Ziggy : Well , there have been bomb attacks in London which resulted in getting 56 people killed and atleast 700 injured.Its all over the TV.And guess what ? Al-Qaeda has accepted responsibility for it !
Nate : Wasn’t that inevitable ? I mean after 9/11 attacks in NewYork and Washington , UK had the blueprints of important cities and places on the news which could be the targets of Al-Qaeda’s attacks.Why is it a big issue , anyway ? I mean there are hundreds and thousands of Muslims dying everyday and no ones bothered about them! Only 50 people died in London and media is all over it. I’m in no way defending the killings .. all Im saying is that the killings aren’t gonna stop until the West does something about the peace process in Middle East.The underlying cause lies in what Osama bin Laden said : If you bomb our cities , we will bomb yours.
Ziggy : What about those innocent Muslims living in Western socities who have to suffer hate and deprivation because of so called religious fanatics ? Arent they concerned about their fellow Muslims ?
Nate : Here is where brainwashing comes into play. The terrorists are indoctrinated in such a way that they believe that people who do not act or think as they do are misguided and intentionally ignore God and Prophet (PBUH) and therefore deserve no consideration from the true BELIEVERS.
Ziggy : Do you really think its all gonna end if West does it part in vacating its troops from Afghanistan and Iraq ?
Nate : Yes… I only hope that one day Breaking News goes on like : All the people of the world unite and live happily ever after . Perhaps then ill start watching news again.

Whose fault is it ?

2005-04-20T11:02:00.000-07:00

The other day I went to Sunday market ( read itwaar bazaar) to buy some books which my friend recommended I’d find there ! Anyhow , I searched the whole bazaar only to find one book.After awhile I returned to th main area of bazaar where you find bags , sandals and all . While my sister was busy bargaining for a hand bag I thought I’d look around for sandals and slippers.I found this one place crowded with people looking for various low slippers and shoes . I started looking around to see if there was anything to my liking only to find NOTHING.That was enough of itwaar bazaar . I had to leave.I looked around to see if my sister was done with her bargaining when I realized she wasn’t only done with her haggling but had also disappeared into another section of the bazaar.Just when I was about to leave I saw this female (not more than 15 years old ) wearing a jeans and a Tshirt ( which is an attire one frequently gets to see in Itwaar bazaar and normally in big malls in Karachi).She had to be noticed . And noticed by whom ? A Pathan . Not an adult Pathan . But a young pathan ( not more than 15 years old ).When she bent down to choose from among the various slippers available , the boy found an opportunity he was looking for ! he came from behind at the precise moment , hit her bottom and ran away ! The female was taken aback.She didn’t know how to react..she looked around as if to blame someone for what had happened…but she was all confused.Flabbergasted.After witnessing all of what had happened I felt this surge of anger creeping within me. I had to react . I forgot all about my sister and started looking for the pathan but he was no where to be seen.

The question here is : Whose fault is it ? Pathan’s , right ? Partly ! Think about it !

Do post your comments.