Man Has Been Created in a State of Distress

By: Shazia Yousuf

I was totally horrified when I read the article “Waiting to receive pieces of daughter’s body” published in The News. Reading about the brutal murder of Shamsul Anwar’s son by some terrorists, tore me apart. Shamsul Anwar according to that article was not an ordinary person, but a hero who risked his own life to save the lives of hundreds of people in a mosque by single handedly taking care of the terrorists who were planting a bomb in the mosque. These same terrorists, later on took revenge by murdering his eldest son, torturing the younger son, and now kidnapping his daughter.

The only thought that kept haunting me was that this world is not at all a safe place any more, where human life is a cheap commodity, which anyone could take easily, and there is no one to stop this barbarism! Even in jungle, rules prevail. But here, we observe “azadi” to the fullest. On the other hand, it was also great to see how people quickly started responding to the call for help to collect ransom money for Shamsul Anwar’s daughter and donations started pouring in even from abroad. I was anxious, and worried, waiting to find out the end result of the efforts.

We Never Have Enough

By: Shazia Yousuf

Whatever we do, however much we earn, we never have enough. Life is a tough struggle these days. Inflation has hit us all badly. “Mehngai” (inflation) is the talk of the day. Vegetables – expensive, meat and poultry – unaffordable, bread and eggs – the prices keep increasing and the list goes on. Fuel, education expenses, electricity, gas and telephone bills are but pulse raisers! Only we know how we manage our monthly expenses! But come to think of it; though with difficulty, we do manage. Some of us might have stopped eating out at (now) expensive restaurants, but we have not given up. Some of us may have given up on wearing brands, but we still manage to buy new clothes every now and then, and especially at occasions. We may be struggling, but we are surviving!

Perspective - “We hope you lose tomorrow, daddy”



By: Shazia Yousuf

“We hope you lose tomorrow, daddy”. These were the words of the daughters of Paul Collingwood, the England cricket player. They said this to him just before the England vs. West Indies do or die encounter as they wanted their daddy to “come back home” as soon as possible. To them all that mattered was to be with their father, even if his team lost the world cup! This explains how much they missed their daddy, who had been extremely busy with his cricket schedule which had forced him to stay away from his family now for several months.