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Sunday, July 17, 2016

Quote of the Day!

You know the best and worst part about memories: "You can't forget them"!

Monday, July 11, 2016

I saw a dream and I wish it could be true.


Dreams. Every one of us has them every night. And do I need to describe dreams? But yes, I would like here to comment about their quality. Some are pleasing, some are not so pleasing and few are not at all pleasing also known as nightmares. Some are usual and normal and some are repetitive. Some are the total recap of our previous day's activities while some are reminiscent. Some are terrifying wherein you fell from a height and some are your favorite adventurous trip. Whatever may be they are like, but, in the end, we know they are not real and then comes the most peculiar dreams we sometimes have. Those dreams which we wish could be true. And one such dream I saw lately.

The dream I saw is very likely to upsurge squabble among the readers, especially in two countries which this dream of mine was centered about. But as a matter of fact, it doesn't matter to me and it should also not exasperate you, because after all, it was a dream. However, if by any means and in any way if any of you is disgruntled then I apologize in the very starting.

So let me begin with my dream. I woke up in the dream in my home at Karachi, India. I was taught in my primary and secondary education in school that my motherland got independence from the British on 14-15 August, 1947. Thereafter my country was one and only one, known as India. The total area spanning 43,16,746 km2 belonged to only one nation comprising of 390 million indigenous civilians "undivided". There was no emanation of two nation theory at the time we were fighting for our liberation. There were no 1 million deaths and 12.5 million missing persons at all for reasons of immigration and emigration. I never read these kinds of bewildering facts in my education rather I felt pride studying facts like, if East Bengal (1,47,750 km2) had been partitioned from India in 1971 due to some inner conflicts there would have been a migration of approximately 6 million people but fortunately it never happened. If there had been riots between Hindus and Muslims from time to time it would have led to 4 major wars in years 1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999 leading to a loss of 28,123 men in total but again it also never happened because each and every denizen of my nation believed in harmony, peace, and non-violence.

The most beautiful state of the republic also known as 'Heaven on the Earth' was its most northern part, Jammu and Kashmir spanning a total area of 3,08,504 km2. Srinagar, Gulmarg, Leh, Sonamarg, Jammu, Kathua, Budgam, Pulwama, Kargil, Pahalgam, Hemis, Katra, Patnitop, Drass, Muzaffarabad, Neelum Valley, Leepa Valley, Mirpur City and Pir Chanasi were some of its most magnificent and audacious locations one could visit. The locations were home to the highest and most beautiful mountain ranges in the world. You could find saffron fields running perpetually to the horizon. Pashima Shawla, apples, dry fruits, Kashmiri Sapphire, Papier Mache, Phernan and Wooden Handicrafts were some of the main attractions of you could find in there.

My country in that dream was one of the safest lands in the world almost free from militancy, terrorism and inner conflicts emerging from issues like inter-religion turmoil, inter-caste riots, and emulation. Although the largest democracy in the world, the government was one of the most powerful, effective in its execution of plans, corruption-free and really bore the meaning of the phrase: 'Of the people, by the people, and for the people'. We had the largest army in the world with almost 1.9 million active army personnel ready to overcome any obstacle that would likely introduce anarchy and upset the established order in the nation. I also read a funny real story in my books that we were in the state of war with China several times when they tried to capture the northern parts of Kashmir and Leh which they eventually lost every time. I used to laugh and feel proud simultaneously after reading that particular story.

The nation literally worshiped Cricket with Cricketers as gods and I am not exaggerating but our national cricket team incorporated the best bowling attack along with the best batsmen of the world obviously best enough to be no. 1 in Tests, ODIs and even T20s. We lifted the World Cup trophy in the year 1983, 1992 and 2011. We were the champions in T20 World Cup in the year 2007 and 2008. And the Asia Cup was like our home cup which we captured frequently in the years 1984, 1988, 1990/1991, 1995, 2000, 2010, 2012 and 2016. We also won the only World Championship held in 1985. We were the only winners in Australia Asia Cup held only thrice in the years 1986, 1990 and 1994. Aren't these facts baffling and ecstatic? My country gave this world some of the best bowlers including the names of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Shoaib Akhtar, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan; some of the finest batsmen this world could have ever seen like Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Rahul Dravid, Sunil Gavaskar, Javed Miandad, Virender Sehwag and Inzamam-ul-Haq; some of the best all-rounders like Imran Khan, Kapil Dev and Yuvraj Singh and captains like MS Dhoni and Shahid Afridi. And why only cricket the country I lived in excelled in major sports like Kabaddi (champions in every major tournament every time), Badminton, Squash, Polo, Snooker, Boxing, Wrestling, Chess and what not.

Widely popular as the most diversified country in the world and basically we were with 1.5907 billion citizens following major religions like Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Buddhism, Christianity, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Kalash and Bahà'ì Faith. Spirituality was one among the prime things the country was famous for. People here speak around total 1700+ languages in total. Home to the festivals like Diwali, Holi, Eid-ul-Fitr, Eid-ul-Adha (Bakra Eid), Milad-un-Nabi, Muharram, Makar Sankranti, Navratri, Janmashtami, Shab-e-Barat, Maha Shivratri, Christmas, Good Friday, Ganesh Chaturthi, Durga Puja, Lohri, Ratha-Yatra, Ugadi, Onam, Vasant Panchami, Rakshabandhan, Dussehra and Pongal. One of the largest human congregation in the world: Kumbh Mela was held here. The grand and greatest weddings were the pride of the nation, happening often. Women without jewelry....how can you even think about it? The regional diversity was beyond comparison and having more than 40 dance forms in total will justify that fact. Not only culture but I was also proud of my country's heritage which was cheerfully preserved and passed onto the next generation. Taj Mahal: one of the seven wonders and Karakoram Highway: the highest paved international road were in my country.

About art and stuff I dare any country would be slightly equal to that of mine and if you can't believe what I am stating then here goes the enumeration. We had the world's largest film-industry in terms of films produced and tickets sold. We gave the world musicians like Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar, Mohammad Rafi, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, A.R. Rahman, Shafqat Amanat Ali, Mehdi Hassan Khan and many more. Freddie Mercury, the legendary singer of the rock band 'Queen' was born a Parsi with the name Farrokh Bulsara while the famous Oscar winning Hollywood star Ben Kingsley was born Krishna Pandit Bhanji.

Now some of the astonishing facts just to show-off and say I am proud to be an Indian. My nation housed the world's highest cricket ground 'Chail Cricket Ground' in Chail, Himachal Pradesh and highest polo ground 'Shandur Top' located in Gilgit. My country was the largest producer of football with more than 50% of the world's football produced there. One of the largest desert: Thar, was in my country. Largest producer of the milk, the largest vegetarian country in the world, 2nd largest English speaking country, largest postal network with over 1.8 million post offices, largest irrigation system, largest ambulance system, 2nd largest salt mines: Khewara Salt mines, the largest deep sea port in Gwadar and list goes on incessantly. Water on the moon was discovered by us. The famous Mars Mission: cheaper than an auto ride in terms of per km ride was ours. My nation gave the world great personalities like APJ Abdul Kalam, Malala Yousafzai, Swami Vivekananda, Mother Teresa, Abdul Sattar Edhi, Kailash Satyarthi and many more.

There was no hate among people of any religion for any other religion. There were no useless ceasefire violation along the middle-western part within the country. There were no harsh feeling among the western part of the nation for the rest of the part and vice-versa. The nation shared its international boundaries with countries like China, Nepal, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Bhutan and Iran. The biggest cricket rivalry was India-Australia. No skirmishes and clashes in the youth on social media over anything related to Pakistan and India.

Actually, Pakistan and Bangladesh did not exist in my dream. The world knew one and only one country as a whole known as: INDIA. But then all of a sudden the morning sunshine pounced on my eyes and woke me up. I realized that I have been dreaming about all these things. I spoke to myself that I had imagined a fairy island like girls often do in their dreams albeit my island did not had Prince Charming in it.

I thought to myself lustfully: I just wish it could be true.

NOTE: All the facts and data are from Wikipedia.

NOTE: The words you are going to read are my personal thoughts that I would like to share with my readers. Although I know this article of mine is fictional in nature but I would like here to state that to write this article I had to go through immense research about the two countries. Throughout my research, there were things I didn't know about India as well as Pakistan. I came to know facts about India and Pakistan that made me both proud and jealous as an Indian. Some facts flabbergasted me to the core and some facts after reading made me wonder what if India was never partitioned, what if these two countries were really together?


Quote of the Day!

It doesn't matter what you were....all that matters is what you are.