credit for the picture above - Banksy

nothing rings truer today than the proverb “AN ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM“ 

a bloody friggin elephant in the room….

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a letter to Ardeshir Cowasjee…

Dated: September 17, 2007

Dear Sir, 

I would love to have started the email by saying I sift through the papers searching for your editorial, but alas the times are of electronic communication, and I surrender. Not only do I sift through electronic pages of DAWN for your words, I have also now turned to communicating with you on email. The latter of course is because I find no postal address under your writings. My mother, who is a lover of words, laments over this loss of ink blots on paper and fingers alike – yet she too composes her books, writings, poetry and other scribbles on her desktop computer, so that she can fit in as many words a day as she can to soothe many of her pains. 

I feel a sycophantic sentence forming and I guess I’ll let it. I’m a great admirer of your writings and I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times plus more. But I find inspiration in your writings. I used to write when I used to get angry about anything. Now I’m usually occupied with being angry with my people and my nation. Your editorial today was a spot on analysis of all that is a blatant mockery of political principles, civil rights, life and existence in Pakistan that is just living but not breathing. 

I was always politically aware and tried many times to spark up a debate with people at school and college. No one wanted to talk, or had enough ammo to fire up the conversation with. The rest just thought I was naïve, which was something I had heard from many since I was a little child. Now I’m not that much older or wiser but having entered the first-quarter of a century in my life cycle I feel entitled to abuse the ‘-century’ addition to my age. I work at the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan – and I feel more desperate than ever. Knowing and seeing and reading all that is wrong and all that is being let to happen is so much more frustrating.  

I wish more and more people could get moved by words – so that I could believe that words had the power to do so not very long ago and that it could happen again; so I could believe that mere poetry could rouse sleeping souls and honest slogans could jar even the most oblivious ones. I wish I could lead a rebellion but all I can do is talk and paint and gesture wildly.   

A relatively new but faithful Reader, 

Saira ******