June 5 , 2018.. I was sitting back at home relaxing on my couch listening to my mother,who was telling me about this sad story she saw on Facebook. An old man from Jhang had to drag his sick wife’s bed to the hospital because of not having any ambulance facility. We both discussed how tragic it was.. I kept listening to her while switching from one news channel to an other and thinking in my head, how hard it was to fast in this heat. I looked at my air conditioner for some reassurance and the temperature was on 16°C. Sighh! Before I could think of anything else, I saw one of the house help coming inside to inform my mother about the water shortage again, it was happening 5th day in a row. To our knowledge the water levels had gone down and we had to dig in deeper to make the motors work. The other day our generator had to get repaired too due to over load . It was the moment when I thought I have had it all and was about to start complaining regarding our third world issues, just when I got attentive towards the TV screen. Our local news channel was showing a report on ”Cheen ka nujawan jo har jarnawar ki awaz nikal sakta hai. Herankun tor pai bandar ko bhe apna dost bana sakta hai....”
I just smiled to myself and started thinking .. Lets leave the still “very modern world issues” such as load shedding and polluted water for general public aside.. Water crisis itself in Pakistan is so so real, it’s alarming. We are heading towards a disaster and our media is showing that cheeni jawan . OK, let’s leave the still “very modern world issues” such as harassment, basic human rights for women in Pakistan for a moment again.. A female student gets stabbed 23 times in day light and our courts let the culprits gets away with it, just like that? What? OK but For the last time let’s leave the still “very modern world issues” such as poverty, education aside.. That old man literally had to drag his sick wife’s bed to the hospital for not being able to afford an ambulance. Imagine his pain! I could count of many more heart breaking things that must have happened today. But what I saw on TV was that cheeni nujawan. I have always been very supportive of media but ours have gone to dogs.
Let’s not be too cynical, our media actually has some serious stuff to cover and talk about today, such as Reham’s Khan book and what the Indian actress said about Pakistan during an interview. For a moment I thought I shouldn’t be feeling disappointed in media. To bring the actual reforms in the country has largely to do with our government and politicians. They must do something! But then I smiled a little more to myself realising there has not been a single official statement, plan or agenda given by any govt official on any of these matter because let’s be realistic , they are busy with serious stuff our “upcoming elections” . The anxious patriotic in me started to kick in and suddenly I had many questions in my head. Where are we heading? Who will save us from us? What are we doing to our country?What is going on? All of sudden I asked myself to calm down, I thought there was still some hope left in our judiciary, they will do something. And then I realised may be not right now because our chief justice is busy with visiting mental hospitals. Let him get done with all that first and then things will get better..
My heart started to sink in, I was on the edge of standing up and saying you know what If these people can’t do something about us, we will do something about us.. but thank God before I could actually leave my couch and go out to actually do something, I heard a sweet voice.. It was 7:06, ifatri time. I came back to my senses and started walking towards the table. The samosas were waiting for me and like many of us, the anxious patriotic in me had gone back to sleep.