This Society And Its Cruelness

There was a death in the city three days ago.

.

An aunty very dear to us, had the misfortune of losing her husband. He was in the hospital the past 1 and a half month, really sick, not being able to cope with pain but he was breathing, alive. 

I have seen that aunty go about her day, working selflessly for others. When she got married, her husband had a whole family to support, so she spend her years, cutting down her needs, educating and then marrying her husbands siblings. By that time, her own kids were grown up, so there studies became a priority. After that came marriages and finally after all these years, she was free. 

The time had come for her to sit back and relax. 

But destiny had something else in mind. 

Word gets around very fast. Its twisted like a piece of twine. Some of the things I heard were down right cruel. 

"See, his sons are Hafiz-e-Quran. But when I asked him to read Quran to his father, he put it on a mobile instead of reading it out loud himself."

"We went to their house to pay our respects and his daughters did not even come out of there rooms."

"I was sitting there for half an hour and I was not asked for water. Back home, we are served tea, samosas, biscuits etc."

"All of there kids are so rude. What was the use of their parents sacrificing so much for such selfish kids ?"

"At least my kids are not like this. If I die, they will arrange for catering and make sure no one goes hungry from our house."

"Ali Sahab and his wife were religious but their kids were not at all. They cared too much about worldly things."

"Parents need to focus more on their kids upbringing. Ali Sahab should have paid attention to his kids religious education."

"His eldest daughter was not even crying. Instead of tears dripping down her face, she was looking after her own daughter."

"Where was their daughter in law's family ? My neighbour's daughter told me that no one visited, from their family in these three days."

This is what is being talked about at a dead man's funeral.

Yes, they are praying for his forgiveness in the next world, for him to be awarded Jannah, reciting Quran and Darood Shareef for hours. But when they go back to their homes, this is what they talk about. Apparently, this was more important then that man's funeral.

So the next time, someone dies near to us. We need to forget our own grief and cater to the people around us. We need to make sure that they get tea, biscuits, eat Biryani, Qorma, Karahi and then Gajar ka Halwa for dessert. Then spread quilts filled with bird feathers, under them so they sit in the most comfortable way possible. We should assist them in every way so they go home and talk about some other nonsense.

You would expect that our society would leave you alone when a person you dearly loved, dies.

But no ! Not even death can put scotch tape on their mouths.

Lord knows what truly can. 

What A Glamour

The first visit to a hospital that I remember is when my mom got admitted for her asthma attacks. My Mamu came to Lahore from Waah Cant and we went to see Amma.

The hospital was spic and span, white tiles mopped so that they shone like the soles of Italian Leather shoes, walls covered with a beautiful Sea Green wallpaper, her room had a twin bed for visitors, attached bathroom, mini fridge stocked with Chocolates and drinks, and a fully functional TV with a box of DVDs with it. 

She was in there for a week or so. While she was sick and we in the hospital for long periods of time, after we getting bored of the room, we took to the outside hallways. That started the skidding races, driving our remote control cars in all the nook and crannies of that floor and emptying the Mini Fridge. 

The second time I remember was when my youngest brother was born. The location this time was KSA. A different country. A different city. Yet the hospital was spectacular. 

Its appearance made you forget that people died there.

Today, I went to another hospital. And I saw the most striking paintings ever. 

Just look at how awesome this painting is. 

You would never know the pain and diseases people suffer and come here to get better from. 

In Bloodlines by Richelle Mead, there is a thing called "Glamour". Its this idea that everything related with Vampires and magic is over shadowed or concealed so that when an ordinary human looks at that thing, the glamour will appear to be something good rather than the real that it is. 

And I thought, what a "Glamour" these hospitals put up. That you forget what you were doing there.

For a moment you don't remember that you were going to sleep hungry, your gum bleeding in school, missing Soccer tryouts and fighting with an elder kid in school.

What your memory recalls is watching a complete season of Full House and ordering Pizza four nights in a row.

But that is all it is. Glamour.

You go back to getting stitches or figuring out how to pay the hospital bills.

......

Allah Knows Best

We were reading Ghalib the other day in school. And according to him, death is the solution to all our sorrows, pain, troubles and problems. He says that all our life we are bound in this cycle of tension and worries. We start from worrying about small things like riding a bicycle, go on to worry about our studies and future, after studies we are afraid of our jobs, after jobs comes marriage, then we have kids, their worries occupy us, then they grow up, get married and so on. The cycle goes on. And you keep on worrying, not stopping for a second. Every day grief grips you tightly with its strong claws and you are not able to free yourself despite trying. The only solution is death. death is what frees you from all your pain. The hold of grief weakens when you die. And you are let go. Every pain that you have lived in your life, whether it is of love, hatred, friendship, family, relative, school, studies, future, teenage, youth, adulthood, etc. Your life ends and you are finally free of everything.

For the first two minutes I was agreeing with him. Then it hits me. He is wrong. Very wrong, indeed. Our lives do not end after our death. In reality that is when they start. We enter in another lifetime, where we are answerable to every single deed we have ever done. Death is not an escape. It is not a gate to freedom. It is just a passage from one life to another. We have to answer to our Creator. Our Sustain-er. Whatever we do in this life will have its consequences there. We will have to answer what we did with our live. How we lived. Our real life starts after death. Life is like our course book which we have to learn by heart. And death is the car which is taking you to your examination center. Then comes the exam. It will be the exam of our lives.

He knows. Every shard of glass that went inside you, pierced your insides and you felt like you will never be the same again, He knows. For He never lets anyone go through what they cannot handle. He had a reason. Whatever happened, happened for a reason. Allah knows. And Allah cares. It was for your benefit. Like the time when you got less marks in your exam, it was because He wanted you to study Psychology instead of Physiology and help that kid across the street. When you did not get the new clothes, He was saving the money for your Dads surgery. When you did not get admission in the college you wanted, He wanted you to study at Oxford. When you had to move across the continents, He wanted you to know what great friendship is. So the next time you feel like hitting your head with the walls and think that the world you knew has vanished. That the only way to get rid of everything is to die. Do know that it is NOT. Allah knew that you will be able to handle it, that is why you went through what you did.

Allah says:

 "and it may be that you dislike a thing which is good for you and that you like a thing which is bad for you. Allah knows but you do not know." (Qur'an Surah Baqarah 2:216)

...SAP...