Short and sweet !*
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By Mariam Imran Mian Have you ever felt like punching someone in the face in a crowd? Or yell obscenities at them, anything at all? I am quite proud to say that during the 17 years and 1 month I have been on this planet, I displayed remarkably high tolerance levels and exercised an amazing amount of self control when dealing with people I wasn"t the biggest fan of. Until yesterday. Mind you, my record for tolerance levels is still the highest, and all that practice came in handy yesterday while I tried my level best not to spoil the decorum by saying things incongruous with the (holy?) gathering, and saved someone from a lot of humiliation. As disappointed as I was that I had not been given a chance to show off my undiscovered dialectic skills, I kept my mouth shut, biting off half my cheek in the process.
**I discovered my capacity for laughter the first time I saw the first 10 minutes of Tom and Jerry. I discovered my capacity for happiness when I got my O Level Result. I have yet to find my capacity to love, and I hope I never find my capacity to grieve. Yesterday, I found my capacity of anger and hate.
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I had been invited, with my family, to a milaad organised in order to pray for a prosperous and bright future of a young couple soon to be married. My cousin and I were sitting in the room adjacent to the one where the actual sermon was being delivered, but it was made sure that we absorb every word of it courtesy a huge speaker placed next to us. Making sure we were appropriately dressed in accordance with the affair, my cousin and I had our heads covered. Just as soon as the sermon started, another aunt of ours insisted we move to the room where the speaker was, just so we would listen more attentively. Being the obedient children that we are, unlike the 21st century stereotypes, we quietly got up and moved.
As soon as my cousin entered the room, the lady delivering the sermon looked at her, and haughtily announced on the microphone, in the presence of 60 something people, that my cousin was not fit to attend “her” gathering. Her crime? Wearing clothes with short sleeves. Sarah was instructed to go and wrap a bigger piece of clothing around her to make her suitable enough to attend the gathering.
She stood there in utter shock, which resulted in the lady throwing a piece of cloth at her to cover her half bare arms. The cloth which was previously used to cover tables, now served the purpose of chastising my cousin.
The lady went on to say that it was the parents" fault that children of this generation had gone astray, and started to commit sins like, no not doing drugs or drinking alcohol, but wearing short sleeves! As much as I tried to admire her for her sense of humour, I was proved wrong instantly when I saw no one laughing.
Her lecture continued, as she unveiled the biggest mystery of all, the one that the CIA has been unsuccessful at solving; the reason for suicide bombings. And a lot of other things.
Meanwhile I sat there thinking that whatever happened to the value of live and let live? To the religion of “peace”?
If we, the “enlightened moderates” have people with such rigid and twisted ideas lecture us on religion, what will become of us? Isn"t tolerance one of our religion"s basic principles? Promoting and imposing their ideas will not fulfill the purpose of Islam, leaving each individual to discover for themselves what Islam is will. However the individual chooses to interpret and practice it, is up to them. It"s between him and Allah, these fundamentalists have no authority to intervene. They have made the simplest religion complicated, leaving confusion for this generation and those to come.
This incessant rant of mine was supposed to be directed at a lady in particular, but I drifted off onto a whole different tangent. Nevertheless, I"m glad that I also discovered my capacity to write. Mark the date, please.
courtesy: The News