Negatively Quaint

Being a teenage of 21st century one surely get buzzes having an iPhone or an Android tablet. This cloud of technology not only shadows teenagers rather it equally rains over our adult community. Our fathers desire luxurious cars, precisely tailored coats & keep au fait with latest exchange rates, waiting to strike gold. Even our beloved mothers constantly search eBay to get hands upon discounted L'Oréal products & while preparing meal they often lose temper, asking (rather ordering) their husbands to have an air conditioner fixed in probably the most sultry yet highly visited part of house. Superficially, it may appear that Pakistanis are ‘technology welcomers’ & trendy enough to be called progressive; but be not hasty for I haven’t yet discussed the murky, regressed & negatively quaint nature of our nation.

Our society at large is characterised by a ‘lower sense of danger’ which to me is a very serious flaw because sometimes critical circumstances demand that you be pumped up in order to react well. For instance, when election time is approaching, every political party is blowing horns to save Pakistan, our nation adhering to quaint ideals of ‘Dua’, ‘Sabr’ & ‘Messiah’ never cast vote, tunneling a way for the power hungry baby-kissers to be re-elected using savvy tactics of buying votes. This paralytic approach towards politics where our large part of the nation regard voting process as nothing but flogging the dead horse, take its toll even upon those few good politicians who believe in earning rather buying votes.

Urn of neglect exists too in our educational system where until now confusion reigns supreme to whether make it more Islamised or Westernised? For parents too, it is a dilemma whether to place their child in an Arabic named school like ‘Darul Arqam’ or a British named school like ‘BeaconHouse’? A nation which by the way prefers English built machines even over Chinese machines now suddenly want its education to be Arabic! Inferring Arabic as Islamic, certainly is a negative aftermath of a quaint philosophy preached & practised so blatantly nowadays. We must realise that knowledge has no religion nor is an impersonation of any specific culture, thus, conventional yet baloney words like ‘Deeni ilm’ & ‘Dunya-wi ilm’ coined by clerics to guarantee (& secure) their social importance, has created a deep fissure resulting in two totally different educational institutions namely Madrassah & school.

Another portion in Pakistan’s society that is characterised by enormous bank balances, vast stretches of land, 4-wheelers & ‘Latha shalwar qameez’ are none other than the notorious Zamindars. These people prefer Japanese built automotives & Russian weaponry but when it comes to wife (or wives) they opt for a Pakistani bride! Million peasants are deplorably hit by the age-old feudalism heritage which not only dictates their already shoddy living standards but such quaintness quenches their intellect too. Modern schools, hospitals are but a dream for people under the lordly grasp of landlords, though one can observe numerous Madrasah, Mosque & Mazar. It appears as if our landlords are well-versed in the vanquished Roman politics where the presence of Colosseum, in our case spiritual sites, dilutes public concentration over more important social aspects such as education & health.

I need not bend somebody’s ear to make them understand that though he can see the growing mobile market in Pakistan, sprouting of various McDonald's markets & the beginning of Facebookistan; but still we are plagued by a quaint norms like honour killings, besmirching womanhood, religious bias, racial bias & what not...If something isn’t done to arrest the unabated growth of such hoary ideals, so very visible in our news channels, we should shamingly get down off our horses & stop calling us progressive!