Finally, im out of LUMS for good. Ive been told it’s the end of an era but the only thing I feel at the moment is indifference. As a matter-of-fact, it’s just the right mixture of joy and sadness with both these opposites canceling each other out such that it leaves my head in a state of perfect balance; or at least that is what I feel. The first four years at LUMS I will always regard as the best time of my life. But I still don’t understand what happened in the last year…im as confused as the day I was born! But im comfortably numb to everything now. I only wish this devil-may-care attitude had developed earlier…would have saved me a whole lotta pain. Anyway, I still cant say I have severed all ties, broken all strings. They still owe me money; quite a lot of money. And well, there are still people at LUMS I really like, look up to even. So, I honestly cant say that I don’t want anything to have to do with LUMS at least for the time that these people are there. Aur paisa lenay aur recommendations likhwane toh jana hee pare ga!
And since there’s no job now and no parhai, I have too much time on my hands these days. So Im nurturing my irritating knack for philosophizing, and worse still, of articulating my theories with such vehemence it scares even myself. Essentially, what the events of November 2004 to May 2005 have done is they have made me into a braying donkey…and I hate it! I want my old self back; the guy with the spontaneous sense-of-humor which sometimes showed depth, not this half-baked philosopher who thinks he’s too wise for the world. If I were in my parents’ place, I would have beaten the crap outta myself. But my folks are showing remarkable restraint as always! And so, the philosophy grows. Right now, I have this interesting philosophy on drugs and booze. Now what I think is that in a society like ours, there are two kinds of people who actually go ahead and lose themselves in drugs and alcohol. The first category is of those people who don’t give a damn about anything but themselves. They think themselves to be at the top of the world, better than everyone else around them, and ‘nasha’ therefore becomes a way of reinforcing that belief. Now the other kind are those who care about many things in the world but the complex social web that mankind has woven around itself bounds them such that they feel totally powerless. Circumstances spiral out of control and fate deals them such a crappy hand that they sink into a state of utter frustration and helplessness. And in this helplessness they look for cheap escapes. And ‘nasha’ is nothing but a cheap, momentary escape. Although, one must admit, once your tunn or high, you can actually look into alternative realities, different shades of people’s personalities. And it is then that you realize, there are not many people out there who are willing to extend a helping hand. Most just want to see the ‘tamasha’ of someone not in his senses, have a bit of fun and be on their way. And it is in such moments of weakness, moments of truth for some, that it dawns upon you: no matter what you do for someone, no matter how many illusions of friendship you hold for someone, you should always expect to be screwed over by that same someone. Some screw you over and then gloat about it, broadcast their achievement over gossip circles, wear it around like a badge of honor. Others screw you over, turn around and blame you for it, then without the slightest hesitation throw you away like you would hurl a banana peel. And then there is a third category; people who come up to you and try to make you understand how pathetically naïve, if not stupid, you have been. Even if u take it as a given that you are stupid, does that justify how you have been treated? Lets talk in analogies…if you walk up to a blind man on the street and knock him down, who would be to blame? If u steal candy from a 3-yr old, whose fault would it be? Social Darwinists, all of us! It is life you’re told. You’re meant to hurt some, get hurt by others. Well at least the latter’s been done. What you and these self-righteous detractors don’t get is that with each new wound they open, they are giving you strength, wisdom even. They are chipping away at your naïveté, the blind trust you put in the world. They are building in you the ability to detach yourself from human beings and to see people as mere pawns in the game of life. Maybe, the end-result will be the creation of a monster. Right about now, there is indifference; indifference and a stubborn determination to push forward leaving all the mess behind, to engage in the struggle that is life itself and not waste much time in lamenting over notions such as ‘friendship’ and ‘sincerity’ that are obsolete in the modern urban world. You know it only gets tougher from here on, but at least now you have the balls to say:
Haan talkhi-e-ayyaam abhi aur barhe gi
Haan ahl-e-sitam mashq-e-sitam karte rahenge
Manzoor yeh talkhi, yeh sitam hum ko gawaara
Dam hai to madaawa-e-alam karte rahenge
Maikhana salaamat hai to hum surkhi-e-mai se
Tazzain-e-dar-o-baam-e-haram karte rahenge
Ek tarz-e-taghaaful hai so woh unko mubaarak
Ek arz-e-tamanna hai so hum karte rahenge
- Faiz Ahmed Faiz
