Changing Radio Stations

“Kitnay samay guzaar gaye…” blasts FM 89, our favorite radio station out here. Josh is perhaps the only Indian band I enjoy listening to and one of the few Indian bands our radio stations play, but my listening pleasure is cut short by a thump on the car window and the melody fades away in the back ground of reality: the crippled fakir begging for a few rupees. Ordinarily, perhaps as an atonement for the guilt I feel for being privileged, I could assuage my conscience by giving him a 10 instead of a 5, but ever since the Punjab Government has started an awareness campaign against the ills that the society is inflicted upon when unassuming people unwittingly support a begging mafia, I have been forced to give up this habit.

Of course without atonement comes reflection and so I reflect on issues. Something deep inside me stirs and whispers: “Go abroad Yasser. Settle down somewhere else. This is not the place for you.” As I drive past “Kalima Chowk” , I get frustrated by the traffic. The voice gets stronger and healthier. “Do you want to spend your life driving to work every day in this chaos, go Yasser go abroad .. you can still start from where you left off”… but as I try to shrug it off it says “Man are you crazy- look they even name their intersections – Kalima- as if an intersection could become Muslim, why do you want to live amongst idiots?” To take my mind off it, I change the radio station and it tunes into some familiar American song. As I try to concentrate on it , the voice gets louder, shriller and abusive “you fckin’ asshole! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU HAVE IN COMMON WITH THESE IDIOTS who don’t even UNDERSTAND THE MUSIC you are LISTENING TO.

DHUZ! I hear a noise. A motorcycle has hit me from the rear. Upset I get out of the car, raving mad, take off my jacket and roll up my sleeves. The motorcycle wallah looks like a lowly clerk. I glare at him and inspect my car. Miraculously the damage is not too much. I still proceed to abuse and insult the guy for being an utter idiot. He is upset but he listens to me, I get more aggressive in stance and my language more abusive. He ignores it and says “Bhai sahib mein bhee Pakistani shehri hoon apki tarah-I am sorry to cause an inconvenience to you but there is no damage done”. Suddenly I am speechless. I get back into my car and drive off. I am transformed. What did he mean? My god! Did he, a mere clerk, teach me a lesson- an Amrika returned Pakistani who knows all- a lesson in equality? How dare he? My thoughts wander off. The inner voice is suddenly silenced. I don’t know why. Suddenly I am not as scornful but a strange pride comes over me.

Things look clearer to me. One must set the bar high especially if one is privileged and wears a suit to work. I belong right here in Pakistan and my true calling is to use my education and privilege to raise up the people, not ride over him. For the first time in the whole episode, my thought goes to my hero: Jinnah, who spent his entire life doing just that. The difference between his lifestyle and that of a common man was much starker than mine and yet he was unable to spend more than 3 years away from the poverty and disease of the subcontinent, which he so abhorred. When he died he left behind a significant chunk of his life’s earnings to leading universities and colleges all over India. and to education trusts.

I turn the channel again… and there is josh: “Baat samajh mein anay lagi.. bun jaye gi khushi.