Palestine is a pain
A constant pain in our necks
Like every Muslim is born with the Pain of Palestine in his her heart.
Barring UAEians, House of Suads, etc
You fools, all
Go and eat your Samosa.
And to get in proper fit to talk, nay listen
Eat your damn biryanis
Our story may end, but your biryani obsessions will never.
End is near O, You Muslims.
Hello, where is that damn lamb piece that was here in my plate?
Plate?
Your plates have already been emptied, you fools.
Bring it on.
Finish your already emptied plate. Scrape the crumbs and ..
Rush for more crumbs?
Nay, if even 5 percent of shame ….
Shame? Ha ha ha…
Dame..
Damn!
Dame Anne Frank.
Yes, Dame Anne Frank?
How our Jewish brothers have remembered Ann Frank, would we too remember our Hind?
Hind? Hind?
Who? Ain’t she the girl who sat amongst the corpses?
For two long days. And could only be reached, twelve days after.
Horrid.
Words can’t suffice. Words fail.
But we need speak up.
We need put words into action.
Hind was the girl who could not write her diary like Ann Frank when she was trapped for more than two years, in a secret Annexe; as Hind had to sit on a broken car seat surrounded by the corpses of her family and She kept calling for help;
To the Red Cross, to her Mother.
Would we too get to read her story in our school text books?
Would the world media talk of her as a hero who defied all odds and persisted ; tried hardest to stay alive, like dear Anne?
Would we ever see the world media put her up as the hero?
We and the whole world hails Ann Frank as a true hero. A hero who never lost hope despite all the darkness around her.
Would we get to grieve over our Hind too, yet another child who got murdered by the Israelis?
Does a Palestinian child count? Is he or she fit to die of starvation?
Do we deserve to mourn her?
That is the question!
Do we even peep out of our windows taking a fraction of a second to know what is happening with our Hinds?
She left her home and boarded a car with her aunt and her family. Their car was stopped near a petrol station and they didn’t know there was no way out of it. She was trapped for more than two days in a car with the company of her family.
Though they had turned into corpses, for a change.
Hind, as a six year old must have freaked out. But she didn’t lose her courage being a Gazan, being a Palestinian.
Hind kept calling her mother on phone and kept saying, she misses her, that she was hungry even.
What would her mother have said?
When my child is hungry, it seems like the sky is collapsing [ a feeling of extreme rush] and I want to rush from wherever I am and reach her out with food.
Her favourite foods, if possible.
What did Hind like to eat?
Hummus ? Baklava? Meats?
What?
But here this 6 year old was even denied a sip of water….she struggled for two days this way and then.
Died.
What else could she do?
Why couldn’t she order a pizza if she had access to a phone service?
Point, folks.
No, she could have tried that.
Yes , why not?
Let’s try to be as insensitive as the UAEians and the Saud’s.
How would we know her story? When we got to reach her 12 days after, would it take us 120 years to even acknowledge her as a hero on her own?
Would she write it down?
But she is dead you say.
Yeah, she is for sure.
Who will write THIS diary of a Hind?
Who, really?
It is our own holocaust and we need to remember the dead. Not just we but every conscience keeper of history needs to remember these deaths.
Deaths that were avoidable. Humans,able and eligible to be saved.
Every human irrespective of his her crimes has the right to be saved.
My imagination fails me miserably. Never before have I written with this much anguish in my broken heart.
We have been so used to our tragedies that even the worst of the tragedies fail to entice us.
So far.
Barely an iota of passion/ compassion in us.
Oh, there goes another to lynching. He was just 21.
The girl was hanged by her uncles and grandpa for wearing a jeans.
Oh, the rapists were welcomed and honoured once they got bail from a Gujarat court.
Bilqees Bano, she is still living! Raped, child murdered, relatives murdered, yet living.
It happens. I told myself!
I have become worse than a rotten potato. Nothing affects me now. Or so I believed
I talked like a veteran of the tragedies.
Living in a post truth ,post 2014 world had its own advantages until a Hind comes out and decides she would sit in a car alone with the murdered and mutilated bodies of her cousins and aunts and uncles. And then she would die too.
Of thirst ,hunger and horror.
What for?
How far can a tragedy go? How far?
A Shakespeare could tell us the trauma of a son who knows his mother in liaison with his uncle, had killed his father.
Or An Othello who discovers he had murdered an innocent wife.
Sab chalta hai.
But Hind and those more than 12000 children have managed to shake me up.
Wrong time, Kiddos. Wrong time.
Where and how and to whom should I appeal for mercy for the kids, at least?
Where should I go? Whom should I proclaim as my ‘own’ to express my anguish?
Whom should I sing the paens of humanity to?
I had convinced myself after seeing so much violence and treachery all along in the post truth world that humanity no longer needs to exist.
It ceased to matter, for us in the recent past, seemed we had become inert to the pain.
But I was so wrong.
Never before we realized we needed humanity, still ,in ample measures.
And we shall always will need more of humanity.
Humanity for each human amongst us.
Does hunger have a religion? Does terror have a hue?
Hunger needs to be fed, be it from any camp. Terror needs to be curbed suitably be it from an organisation or an establishment.
We need not just remember our Hinds but also keep reminding the world about it.
Long past are the days when we could even think of saving our Hinds before they sit in their cars and their families.
Why can’t Hind be yours as much as she is ours?
They say, it is only the Victor who writes histories as per his/her convenience.
But let us , the defeated ones; for now – attempt to write our histories, our diaries, our stories and even our letters.
Who will read them, though?
Yeah, that is the question.
Nobody denies the Jewish holocaust
Imagine how it would feel if someone denied they slapped you kicked you punched you and then pulled out your guts along with the good and bad bacteria you have been nurturing and then they deny it.
How would it feel?
It is said, we suffer more in our imagination.
But in Gaza the last shreds of the remaining imagination have been reduced to further shreds, to nothingness.
Destroyed, destroyed are we, our imaginations.
Damn this world
Damn the oppressors
More than 12000 children have been murdered several more are starving…
Children dying of hunger, limbs being cut without anaesthesia on the kitchen tables
When the enough is enough for the Amrikas and the Israel?
Meanwhile let’s continue to trust dear Ann as ever….
“It’s difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”
Ann Frank
Dr. Asma Anjum Khan from Maharashtra teaches English, a motivational speaker, has written for prestigious national and international publications and websites on social, ethical, and gender related issues. FEEL (Foundation for English and Ethical Learning) is her NGO that wants to bring change by equipping people with the language of English. Twitter: @AsmaAnjumKhan
