Bush, Bin Ladin and Taja (standard:other, 1054 words)
Author: Muhammad Nasrullah Khan	Added: Jan 04 2002	Views/Reads: 3315/2208	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A common man who was living innocently becomes the victim of war between Bush and Ladin.

Bush, Bin Ladin and Taja By Muhammad Nasrullah Khan 

Almost three months have passed. Tides of death have swallowed the burnt
bones of theTaliban. The faces of children have become old in these 
three months. The wrinkles on their faces look as if they have lived 
three centuries in a cruel world. They will enter the New Year with 
blank eyes. These thin children will stand in the dirty streets staring 
at people passing by, searching for their lost mothers. Their empty 
eyes are widened to see the dazzling lights of foreign cameras. The 
flashes capture their withered faces. But the children are unable to 
understand this drama, because they do not know that pain is the most 
valuable commodity in the human market. Soon these pictures will become 
important and the children will be left behind in the darkness. These 
pictures will be hung on the bright walls of galleries, but the human 
souls will be forgotten forever. 

The convoys of political genius can be viewed on the bright screens,
explaining the situation with their twisted tongues. The swollen 
intellects have become more abstract. Their genius is revolving around 
"IF if Bush had done this" "if Bin Laden would have been crushed 
earlier; if Taliban"---and many more IFS. It seems if course of history 
takes place by their balloon-like brain. These big brains do not 
perceive the very small basic truth-- there is no victory in war, the 
death of even one innocent existence is the humiliation of God. The 
ultimate achievement of victory is the murder of humanity first in New 
York, then in Afghanistan, and then in---who knows? War is the endless 
twister which swallows millions of people. It will keep on moving from 
the east to the west and then west to east, unless man overcomes his 
lust of conquering others. Unfortunately, man will never overpower it! 

War and its ambition washes away thousands of ordinary people who have
no concern with it. They are very common folks, many of whom never knew 
the name of the Twin Towers or of the Giant Ladin. They live to fill 
the ever-empty stomachs of their little children. These simple souls 
are used as the fuel of war-fire. In the USA or in Afghanistan the 
people who were killed were living with dreams in their eyes. They did 
not have any desire to conquer bin Ladin or George W. Bush. 

Now they are talking about the restoration of the Towers and of
Afghanistan, but who will restore the dreams that are lost in the 
eternal dark valley of death? Taja was also one of these thousands of 
victims. He lived in the slum area of a remote town in Pakistan. He was 
a sweeper of the small area of that town, where I have been living for 
these last many years. I think his name was Taj Maseeh, but everybody 
called him Taja. Poor people have never complete names, like their 
incomplete existence. 

Taja used to wake me up after sweeping the entire street. He had a lot
of stories to tell me which I never listened to completely, for I had 
my own stories half-written-- stories like the half-opened graves. He 
was a wonderful singer too and often was ready to blast out his new 
songs. In the evening he used to perform small roles at the local 
theatre. Once he also took me to his heaven. I had no interest in those 
plays but on his stress I went to see the opening ceremony. The special 
event of that play was that it began with a soft romantic song, and the 
singer of that song was Taja. There was great applause for that song 
and I saw the happiness in Taja's wet eyes. The next day when he came, 
he was not in high spirits. He told me that nobody appreciated him, all 
the credit was given to the actor on the stage, nobody cared about the 
real man behind the role. He told me that he would quit performing in 
such a mean environment. But this was not the first time he'd thought 
this, he had decided to quit many times before. But as a new play 
started. he would go to the theatre with a new spirit, as a moth moves 
towards candle. 

Taja was born to perform behind the curtain. Nobody ever appreciated the
real man standing in the dark background. All the applause was for the 
actors, standing on the glaring stage. The original creator always 
remains in the darkness like God. 

What is the relation of Taja with Bush or Ladin? You must be thinking
about the inconvenient and abstract plot of the story. But how can I 
harmonize the plot of the story when Taja had a plotless life? Such 
characters live without unity of plot and die without any significant 
resolution. He was a Christian in a Muslim society, as Muhammad Rafeeq 


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