Love humanity

It is easy to love someone you know, or you have formed some form of attachment with. But it is difficult and worthy of applause when we develop ourselves to love humanity. This love can stem only when we detach ourselves from our own tiny world and focus on the bigger picture we are surrounded by. This is probably the driving force behind my company’s latest CSR campaign this Valentine’s day: ‘Celebrate love by donating’ ! My company rarely impresses me by their activities, but this one has truly attracted my heart and soul! It is a very unique and inspiring thought indeed.

U.A.E has declared this year of 2017 as the ‘Year of Giving’. Subconsciously, this thought always pricked me that I am not doing anything for the greater good. My life is so entangled with my own relationships, both personal and professional, that I never really paused to think how my existence could impact people positively. Time and again, I am nagged by my conscience that my life is really unproductive. We love some people in our lives so dearly, we give them our all yet at some point of time, they hurt us. They puncture a hole in our heart every time they do so. And they even walk out without warning. We mope around for a few days, months, or years and replace those people with a fresh set of people. But the cycle of heartbreak repeats. It is a part of life. I have decided that I do not want to replace people with people to attain happiness. I have tried that multiple times and somehow, always failed. I always wondered where I am going wrong. I expected, that is where I went wrong. Now I want to channel all my love, care and attention towards humanity. I want to nurture my soul by giving all I have to the desperate and needy creations of Allah, without expectation of any return from them. Maybe then I can justify my presence in the world. Maybe then I can sleep peacefully at night. Maybe then I can silence the tug of war in my heart between my duties and desires.

Daily Prompt: Disagree

via Daily Prompt: Disagree

Most of what I see on the news these days, makes my insides recoil in shame, pity and anger. The mounting tensions all over the world, the pools of blood formed everyday in the name of God, the false hypocritical talks of a certain Drumpf (and similar prototypes budding in every country), the advancement of vulgarity labelled under ‘freedom to live as one wishes’, the consecutive invasion of once-revered morals, the violation of souls whose bodies are raped, the ever-growing gap between the poor and the rich, all of it hurts me and shatters my illusion that humanity will embrace peace someday. I disagree with what the world has become. I disagree that good times are soon to come. Yet, a tiny hopeful part of me disagrees with myself, and argues. That it is all for the good. That the human in all us of will outperform the devil. But I won’t be deceived again. I disagree until I witness that sheer moment of unparalleled brilliance.

 

Some Women’s Day

Even 105 years were not enough to achieve women empowerment. That is what I think when I am greeted a ‘Happy Women’s Day’ by my colleague. I reply back with a warm ‘Thank You’, and I think all this internally. I don’t want to be a cynic around people but this is the space where I am brutally honest. Because I have to be. Isn’t that an essential part of women empowerment, freedom of speech?

Not that I don’t appreciate the thousands of women who have carved a niche in what they do. I admire each one of them for standing up for what they believe in. But figures, ratios and proportions still let me down. When will the ‘thousands’ convert to ‘millions’? Will it even happen before the world ends? I cannot tell at this point.

In our global society, where on one hand we have one Malala, we saddeningly have hundreds and thousands and millions of women who are deprived of what Malala stood up for. Not only deprived of education, but deprived of respect, equality and freedom in all aspects of life. And this is a phenomenon, in all classes of society- lower class, lower middle class, upper middle class, super class (if such a thing exists), royal class and any other shit classes that exist. I just talked about equality and am now mentioning all these so-called social classes, ironic huh?

So I do not know what I have to celebrate women’s day for. For being one of the most brilliant creations of God that is still a victim of infanticide? Or for having unique multi-tasking abilities not common to most men, yet trampled upon (quite literally at times) time and again by ‘superior men’? For our innate affection that we shower upon our families, which becomes burdensome at times and is sold in marriage?  For being an attractive commodity of a huge ‘trade’? For upholding the honor of the family at all times because honor is an exclusive responsibility entrusted to us, and not men? For sacrificing what we love, always, every single time, every moment of the day?

These campaigns, these celebrations, the pledges, these are all efforts. Good efforts. Efforts taken since a century. Maybe more. With little or no outcome. And we won’t be witnessing much change for ourselves until the tired,hopeless women in each house speak. Speak, fight, defend and do everything they can to be happy. Stop giving in to something that you know is wrong. Stop expecting change. Be the change. Listen to your soul.

I am Blessed to be born in a family that raises girls to be confident, strong women with the power to decide how their life has to be. Maybe you are Blessed too. But there are still many out there who aren’t. Figures. They still don’t make me happy.

 

Iman لإيمان‎

Faith. It is such a strong emotion. For those who believe, it dwells deep within, but very often, it completely ricochets off those who are less fortunate. Such a person is doomed to become hopeless, because every relationship on the planet is driven by faith. The Creator demands a sense of faith from His creations. The newborn has faith in its producer that it would be nurtured. A mother has faith in her children that they would grow up and protect her when nobody would. It is with utmost faith that a farmer ploughs his land and sows the seeds, hoping to reap a living. A mutual faith exists between lovers, a belief that they would last with the other forever. Friendship is built on the foundation of faith. However, when life gives a bitter dose at some point of time, people lose their faith. At first, they stop expecting from people, then God, and eventually they lose faith in themselves.

Life gets very difficult without faith. How can one pursue their dreams believing that they are doomed anyways? It is sad that some people never recover from such trauma. Lack of faith is a way to self-destruction. What remains is a heart that pumps but does not feel.

It is important to remember that a few setbacks should not be given the power to crumple upon our hearts, emotions and ambitions. We were born to live, fight, adapt and evolve with time. Life does not really come to a standstill. It goes on and its upto us to go ahead with it or wither in our agonies. I remember there were days (in fact, time and again, there still are days), when I used to wake up and feel why did I just not pass out in my sleep. These days were followed by nights where I used to cry and plead to Allah for a better tomorrow. And guess what? When I wake up today, the first thing I feel like saying is: Alhamdulillah (Praise be to Allah).  For those of you reading out there who are in a predicament, get up! Go out and explore the world and discover that life is such a beautiful representation of faith. Approach the world like a foreign traveler and have faith that good things are going to happen on this journey, and trust me… eventually, they will.

When food kills…

There are few things in my life that never fail in giving me an immense amount of pleasure, food tops that list. I am, what most people call these days, a foodie. And to be precise, a fast-foodie. I crave beef burgers, cheesy pizzas and cheesier, saucy pastas. I have tried them all, from McDonald’s to Burger Fuel, Pizza Hut to Papa John’s and Vannelli’s. But I am not proud. I am not proud of sabotaging my health so successfully. I am not proud of losing all sense of control of my diet when I pass by KFC and the aroma of crispy fried chicken pulls me towards the long queue of people waiting to place their order. People who, just like me, have fallen into the unhealthy food routine. Despite my repeated attempts at eating well and keeping healthy, I somehow always find myself eating those fries again. I keep saying to myself, ‘there is a lot of time to lose weight, I don’t need to hurry’ or ‘I am not that overweight, look at her’ but no matter how much I lie, I now know that things are not right. I am glad I have accepted now that I need to take this matter seriously and work towards getting fit. I have been hitting the gym for a year now. I did manage to lose weight to the point that I started getting compliments and I became complacent and started eating the junk again. But I saw a video today morning, a speech which made me realize how people like me are falling prey to the marketing antics of fast foods. The increasing profits of fast food corporations mark the increasing exploitation of people’s health.  The fact that disgusted me the most was how these corporations target young children and teens as a part of their marketing strategy. The heavy presence of their advertisements on TV channels and social media in the form of special offers and discounts never fails to grasp attention. Also, the ease of their availability and feasibility make them the top choice of food for those dining out. Another shocking fact about these foods is that the more we eat them, the likelihood of getting addicted to them increases. They are composed of high levels of sugar and sodium. Ingesting sugar stimulates the brain in some weird way that releases dopamine in the blood. These increased levels of dopamine are responsible for the emotion of pleasure we might have encountered on eating junkies. 

U.A.E ranks 5^thin the list of most obese countries in the world.  In this country, 3 in 5 children suffer from childhood obesity. Who is to be blamed? Honestly, nobody but ourselves. It is the parents’ fault that they do not inculcate the right eating habits from the young age and our fault that despite being warned about the associated risks of eating fast food, we still engage in destroying our body. In this fast-paced era, we just do not find time to cook at home, but we have time to come up with all the excuses in the world.

What we need to realize is that this is our body we are talking about, our most prized possession. And nobody would value it till we ourselves take care about it. People can go on marketing, others can go on eating, but if we care about ourselves and our children, we need to take control of our life and be the change we want to see. We can still love eating, but we need to decide the quality and quantity of the food we intake. We need to form a balanced lifestyle and stick to it. We need to find time to do all this. We need to make sure our mind and body listens to us and not the female model on screen bingeing on the big fat burger (which, she probably never even ate in her life, considering how she looks).

The video truly inspired me and I hope to exercise more self-control than before. I would still eat my favorite foods once in a while, but will start exploring new, healthier alternatives that can stimulate my taste buds yet keep me alive for a longer span of time.  Grilled chicken kabobs. Served with hammous. Dinner. Perfect.

P.S: Check out the links I have shared  below to understand what I am talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bop3D7-dDM&feature=share

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEXBxijQREo&feature=share

It is just another story about rape….

Barely a day has passed since the 4 suspects of the infamous Delhi rape case were convicted and sentenced to death, another gruesome, if possible, worse rape case has come into light. 20 year old Muslim girl, a Polytechnic student in Hyderabad has been found to be repeatedly raped over the course of a year since she went missing. More details about this heinous act can be found out at the link given below:

20 year old Muslim girl raped in Hyderabad

After reading this, I really do not know what I should feel. Should I feel pity for her? Or anger and disgust for all those involved in the brutality? Or be terrorized by the thought of being a girl born in India. I really do not know. I really am at a loss for words to describe how disgusted and dejected I feel. What is happening in this world? I’ve always grown up believing that Allah has created this world with a balance of everything. If there is night, there always follows a day and similarly where there is evil, it is always definitely balanced by good. But where is the good? All I see around is evil. From the evil animal who raped the girl because she was a Muslim, and the three flat owners who gave him the premises to continue his animosity, and the drunk members of the Police who let him free, to his family who were shockingly pleased at the discovery of their son’s evil endeavors, everywhere I see is pure breeds of monsters disguised as humans. Who is to be blamed? What can be done? If a death sentence cannot scare these soulless bastards, what exactly can?

I think the time has arrived for the construction of a ‘Guantanamo prison’ exclusively for rapists. It is only fair. Why should they be sentenced to such an easy death? If justice has to be served, they should be mutilated and humiliated in the same way as their victims. They should be killed and tortured to death. I do not care if I am being harsh or irrational. All I know is I am hurt, I am terrified and I plea to Allah for Him to cast His Doom on the evil-doers.

The so-called modern world is fast evolving into a dwelling of many such soulless, mindless beings and if something about this is not done soon, one day we will find ourselves awake in hell. Hell for the good, heaven for these works of Satan, so ironic right?

May Allah Bless us and Give us the Guidance to support the right and oppose the wrong. Ameen.