If I were a seed

Everything in this universe has a beginning and humans usually keep looking for answers to solve the mystery of how it all began. Well I don’t know much but I do know how a plant nurtures. I start it all. Seeds develop from the ovules in the female plant, so in order to develop into seeds, the ovules must first be fertilised by the pollen from the male plant. Once fertilized I am formed, a seed.

Have you ever seen a seed in your favourite fruit or vegetable? Like humans, I come in all shapes and sizes. I take different forms I am very small but I grow into huge trees, shrubs and vines. Some of the humans think it’s amazing that all the different plants come from this small seed. Everything has components they are made of I am a tiny seed with an embryo that will develop into roots, trunk, branches, leaves and fruits. After maturing, seeds go into a state called dormancy. While they are dormant the seeds are scattered and dispersed. Development of the seeds, from fertilisation to shedding of the ripe seeds, can take several weeks or even months

Until the seed germinates it is dormant. I am a marvel, all I need to develop into a plant is soil, water and sunlight. The largest seed in the world is the double coconut. It can measure up to 50cm (1.6ft) around the middle.

If you eat a fruit or vegetable that has me in it, don’t throw me away, dig a small pit, put me in it and pour some water, after weeks I’ll be smiling at you with my little branches and leaves. Seeds provide the world's daily food. Your breakfast cereal and toast, your pasta or pizza lunch and your rice dish, the tea that you take, your round chappati, all started life as seeds from different grasses.

Seeds are used by humans for a number of purposes. The most important of those uses are as foods. Some seeds are eaten directly, while other are used to manufacture flour, starch, oil, or some other edible products. From the moment I am formed to the very moment I become a plant I serve humans. I make forests which is the habitat of many animals that children go to zoo to see like lions, deers, zebras etc.

You know in a way I am life itself, because no living being can survive without oxygen and without me life would be in danger. So if I could ask the children to do one thing, it would be to plant more trees and take care of them.

What hurts me is the fact that people don’t value plants much, it takes ages for me to develop into a big strong tree, shrub or a herb of medical benefit, they cut the plants down in a jiffy, without ever thinking that how strenuous was the process. I hope that children will start to understand the value of seed and a full grown up plant.

It's a man's world - and his mother is to be blamed for it

So the cliché goes. For, a woman is feeble, sensitive, cries easily, and is physically weak. Also, she absolutely has to be a good cook and, hey, she isn’t a certified woman unless she is a home maker. Nobody ever questions that. I never did, because that is how we are brought up. We are the pride of our fathers only when we successfully marry into a family and die serving our in-laws. We are bred to make our husbands astronauts and pilots and to help them achieve their dreams. But never those that are our own.

How can we dare to talk about equality, this is a man’s world… equality is not even an option; not something we, the women, teach our children.

So, let’s save our time and breath and not talk about dreams, at all – they are only for men. So is respect and freedom. Women, on the other hand, can’t even walk down the street without being stared at, commented on and harassed. According to one report of Human Rights watchdog in Pakistan, as many as 68% women are sexually harassed when they step out of their homes. Mothers of Pakistan, you are not doing a good job, you are raising harassers and frustrated chaps who can’t imagine their own sisters being subjected to such acts, but can’t stop themselves from “complementing” someone else’s sister.

I won’t blame the men themselves for that, I would put the blame on their mothers. How can a daughter be trained to be so sacrificing, programmed so skilfully to “obey” her husband and pack her dreams, comfort and aims in a suitcase and throw it away into the ocean of indifference? Because nobody cares about what she wants to be, all that she needs to be is a wife and then a mother. This is what she was told, by her own mother. But that same mother is not able to tame her boys and programme them to respect the woman walking down the street. She couldn’t teach him not to whistle at every woman he sees on the road, to pass a comment, to not try to touch her, harass her, look at her or make sexual gestures to her.

When I discussed this issue with some educated women, I was appalled to hear their absurd argument that men do these acts out of frustration, and that harassing a woman lets out their steam. If a man is not getting what he wants out of his life, would he be justified for redeeming himself by harassing women?

Absurdly unacceptable.

In the end, it’s all about power. In our society, power has always been the mistress of the man. And we, the women, make sure it stays that way by raising our boys to be power-drunk and ill-mannered. The women who raise these boys into men are failing. Failing badly. I am not going to raise my daughter to be a shadow of her real existence, she will have dreams, hopes and vision. My son will know that respecting women who are related to him is necessary, but respecting women who aren’t is obligatory. So that somewhere out there a frustrated woman like me – who chose to write to let out her angst – would not blame the generation before her for not raising their children right. And I thank my father for giving me a voice. Let’s put a stop to harassment and ill-treatment by nurturing strong daughters and caring boys. Because yes, this may be a man’s world, but it would be nothing, nothing without the women.

Published in: 

http://nation.com.pk/blogs/12-Feb-2015/it-s-a-man-s-world-and-his-mother-is-to-be-blamed-for-it

Killing them with kindness

You know choices make us who we are. You are good or evil because of the way you decided to choose what you chose! If you face that crossroad in your life make a choice that will not betray the nobility that you hold within you.
These little tests and reactions own us titles we will be remembered with so never act bad because something bad was done to you by someone bad, these are merely excuses to not own the fact that you were weak and driven by feelings of hatred, revenge or anger. Be better than that! and you know what, like my grandma used to say "Don't become bad because the other person is bad to you. If you feel like killing them, kill them with your kindness!" Once you drive away the bad or evil inside those people with your own kindness. You my friend, have taken your revenge!! *winks*

Should I Stand Up Or Bow Down?

The Pakistan we live in is by far not the Pakistan Iqbal dreamt of and Quaid-e-Azam stood up for. Today the situation demands me to take a stand, either I go on with what was or I support any force that demands change, freedom from continuity of every evil that stemmed and now has roots so strong it will take tears, screams, wounds or even blood to uproot it. “Should I Stand Up Or Bow Down?”

 I, while, thinking of this question thought of the Muslim Indians of Sub-continent before 1947… “FREEDOM” what did it mean to them?

For them, maybe, they lived in a place where ISLAM was not practiced but was just a statement or an apparent symbol, self-respect was shattered by the system that proclaimed to be their benefactors, education was non-existent and out of reach, the ones who could reach the unattainable education met their destiny through a question “You ought to study to be slaves or masters?” They became the slaves, merit didn’t matter because there was prescribed grading system in the society, they became the grass on which the authoritative trampled on. Status quo got all the perks, Injustice became the law, fight for rights was considered treason, and anyone who stood up against the system feared their existence. And the biggest irony was the people who made the qualifying rules and constitutions weren’t qualified to do so. A question rose then and there in someone’s mind, “Should I Stand Up Or Bow Down?” tears, screams, wounds and eventually blood to get rid of it all.

Laborers and farmers neither lived nor died the way lords and feudalists did, the honor of the women who belonged to the weaker class never mattered, every opportunity from the hard-working class was snatched, poverty was a crime and voicing their opinions was punishable, laws and constitutions were made and molded for the oppressors and rulers, caste creed and race made you eminent, accountability was only for the weak and the rich became the inevitable rulers.. And again the question echoes “Should I Stand Up Or Bow Down?”

Mothers losing their sons, daughters losing their fathers, they knew that Pakistan might not bring them their dear ones back but they were hoping for a land where they thought FREEDOM was finally made invincible through the dripping blood of the ones who laid their lives envisioning the land of Purity PAK-ISTAN where their generations to come will never see a sunrise that will shackle them again and with that last thought they rested in a peace that gulped their hearts for eternity.

The part that drowns me into sadness is that they were overseas rulers, they were supposed to be vicious, this time fate made us meet one of our own. This betrayal reminded me of a play by Shakespeare, when Julius Caesar sees that among his murderers stands one of his own, he cries out his last words “Et tu, Brute?(Brutus! You too?)”

NOW.

Should I stand up or bow down? The answer resonates through the decades, it might take tears, screams, wounds and eventually blood to get rid of it all, but, I have decided to ‘Stand Up!’.

PTI JALSA LAHORE

Yesterday i went to the PTI jalsa in Lahore. It was one of the most refreshing events of my life. People in thousands taking care of each other because they were there for a cause, a change that is inevitable for them. For fighting against the reign of injustice and tyranny, for a rule that believes in inheritance than in merit. All of us hoping for change and helping each other to achieve it. May we see a day when Imran Khan lifts the clouds of darkness from our nation that shackles us to enslave our lives away, so that we can see a sunlight that will bring us our freedom. AZADI!!

Decisions

Sometimes decisions are made, they require not much consideration.. But some decisions almost drain every bit of energy out  from your life!

You think and think, but nothing helps you decide.  That time makes one feel like if they are hanged...

And there's no where to go. If only decisions were just made, without the constant pressure of them not being wrong. And to later be not on our list of regrets!

To Achieve Perfection And Success

You cannot be perfect. Remember that!

You are going to have flaws and errors. It's human! But what great people do is they accept with dignity what they are not and can never possibly be!

Nothing is more fearless than a man that knows his own self; knows his weakness and his strength. But to just know it, is not all.

They accept that they are not great at all the things and find that one thing that makes them unique and distinct. To not yearn for something they cannot have and something they cannot be, but to allow themselves to be imperfect, and accept it with grace is the key to contentment, which is success.