SYMPATHY
EMPATHY
APATHY
by AYAZ MALIK
Why are we where we are today?
Indulging in the blame game (and why not since every body else and his uncle is) since oft-repeated answers come to ones mind (if there is an intact mind left capable of dishing out plausible, logical and acceptable answers) its due to the martial law regimes, its because of lack of able and honest leadership, it is due to the corrupt politicians and etc., etc., etc., and the list could go on and on thus completing my piece and making my job easier. But I don’t
Apathy, today, is rampant and found in abundance all around us and in every sphere of life. It is found in one and all. We are not bothered anymore what happens to the city or the mohalla we live in. Rather, in some cases not even our homes and houses. We just don’t lift a hand towards their improvement. |
believe in the easy way out since passing the buck is the easiest of games. Let’s do it the difficult way. And, believe me, its very, very difficult to look into ones own garaiban. You have to open your shirt buttons and bend your neck 90° (ninety degrees) to look inside. Quite an arduous exercise if you are not used to it. Leaves you with a stiff neck more often than not. But since our garaibans are already mostly torn it saves us the labour of opening the buttons. Convenient isn’t it.
I did it! Or shall I say tried doing it. Kept looking in my garaiban and for quite sometime. Couldn’t find anything but I did get a stiff neck. Second time I was rewarded with a few blurred images- undecipherable though. Third time my auto-focus started functioning, the blurred visuals started taking form. Being one, not given to giving up and gifted with endurance and bearing all sorts of pains in the neck as also having read the story of King Robert Bruce and the Spider - the moral of the story being ‘try, try again’- I did. And Eureka, as Pythagoras exclaimed when he discovered a unique way of verifying the quantity of Gold in the diamond studded crown of the king. I also found it. Found what I was looking for. Dhooondney sey to khuda bhi mil jata hai. The condition is search with sincerity. What I found was simply astounding. What I saw with my eye of Batin was really an eye opener - literally.
I found in my profound wisdom that we are a great nation of sympathisers.
We sympathise with this political party or the other. We sympathise with injustices, tragedies and calamities far beyond our borders. Watching television while having a sumptuous dinner we sympathise with train accidents and plane crash victims but most of the time - and it’s become a habit - we sympathise with our own selves our motto being “Ask not what we are doing for our country. Always ask what the country has done for us.” The original motto of Kennedy given to us along with US aid package and modified according to our culture, environment and socio-politico economic (this I include to give heavy weight and my knowledge ability to impress you dear readers) norms and needs.
Our norms and needs need no better example than the qurbani we offer on Bari Eid. Keeping the best cuts and bits for ourselves or those above us who don’t actually need them. The charade goes “Raan to raan” and “Dasti to dasti” while in our magnanimity the “pallas and chichras” go to the really needy and poor who line up at our gates and door steps and who all the same give us duas in return - good trading. So coming back to the topic, we are great sympathisers.
This sort of symbolic sympathy had to and did convert itself to, by a simple replacement of the letters SM by an A leading to our present state - Apathy. Apathy, today, is rampant and found in abundance all around us and in every sphere of life. It is found in one and all. We are not bothered anymore what happens to the city or the mohalla we live in. Rather, in some cases not even our homes and houses. We just don’t lift a hand towards their improvement. And believe me (again) for those who do, we have a word – crazy. The general terminology of today in Dekha jaey ga, Kuch nahin ho sakta, Meray sochney ya karney sey kia farq parey ga, Jo sab key sath hoga hum bhi bhughat leingay and so on and so forth. We call it fate. We have become fatalists to the extent of pessimism. Yet, we talk, talk and talk all the time about the problems confronting us but that too on the individual level and not collective.
Thus from sympathisers we have as we had to, become complainers. Why go far (dour kyon jaein) I bought Biryani and joris of kheer from a well established and popular restaurant in Clifton. At home after devouring the biryani when I came to the kheer stage, my father having had his share of it, I found, on removing the rubber band my pair of earthen saucer (thuthis) to be empty. My maza became kirkira. Seeing my disappointment my father retained the said empty pair telling me to take it to the source, lodge a strong protest and have it replaced with an apology - a due one of course. And what did I say? Chorain (leave it, forget it) and this in my profound wisdom I saw in my very own buttoned-up garaiban just before starting this piece. Convincing, isn’t it?
And that’s why we have landed in this quagmire a popular word these days with many of our writers and columnists - funny word though due to its quag. Do try pronouncing it. Don’t you feel like a duck?
Seriously though, and I do get serious at times - every eight hours - why this wet rag state have we come to. Allama Iqbal our nation’s favourite poet and philosopher was not a bit of a fatalist. On the contrary he had said “Jo ho zang-e-yaqeen paida to kut jati hein zanjeerian”. But what happened was that the integral link of Empathy got lost somewhere along the line and time. We didn’t have a spare so we used the always available tool jugaar and replace the Empathy link with the apathy one and due to its flexibility, it is still flexing and not allowing us to replace it.
It’s better than sympathy feeling for others and certainly better than apathy - not feeling for anyone including oneself. |
Empathy is to feel with others. It’s better than sympathy feeling for others and certainly better than apathy - not feeling for anyone including oneself. Let’s break this collective effort and link directly sympathy with empathy. No government, institution or departments and institutions are formed by persons and personalities from amongst our very own societies and families.
If we are where we are today it’s because of our own selves. Let’s take the first step or the first look into our own garaibans and believe me (for the third time) we’ll be the first to see how it works wonders. We do this and we’ll make Allama Iqbal very happy and our beloved Quaid-e-Azam would be smiling and their souls will rest in peace eternally and we will be there where they wanted this nation of ours
to be.n
