That there is an energy crisis in the country is obvious, harsh reality - and even if urgent, emergency measures are taken today it will take a couple of years, hopefully, before the challenge is adequately met. When will the country be self-sufficient in energy alone, is something that provides an occasion for grim thought. For serious contemplation.
That there is a political uncertainty, and an apprehension of sorts on subjects ranging from the judicial to the economic, to whether President Pervez Musharraf will resign or use his powers to react and hit back and whether the political parties are actually preparing for the next general elections, are some of the troubling themes that enhance the levels of tension that citizens now live with on a day to day basis. Power shortage and its growing unavailability and unreliability only multiply the frustrations of the people - a people desperately searching for solutions, and who have been successively and consistently been cheated and deceived by their leaders, military and civil both, and let down by their sustained incompetence.
And amazing and tragic is the point that all this, without the accountability (read justice) that should have been an integral part of this society. Alas, that has not been the case.
Therefore it is inevitable, natural and logical to be cynical as a citizen of this society. To be distrustful of intentions, and to be unsure of the quality of decision making and governance that comes from a government which gets bloated with rhetoric with the passage of time.
Therefore, citizens ask with skepticism about the decision to put the clock forward for three months, by an hour. From the first of June, Sunday, it will be implemented. There are three more days to go before the clocks move forward.
Official advertisements on this theme, as well as energy conservation are once again appearing in the print media and on the electronic media as well. I am unsure of how much people understand the actual intent and implication of the Daylight Saving Time (by an hour) and I am unsure of whether it has been explained to not so curious citizens. At the back of the mind is that they will carry on with their lives, regardless, and resist it (the DST, that is.)
As a people we are doubtful always about all official measures and schemes, and unwilling to change our lives, for all the good that could come if there was compliance. But perhaps, Pakistani people have been let down so often, and so shamelessly by the leadership at the top, by the decision-makers cosy cushioned governments that have not kept their word, that their cynical cautious response is understandable.
Look at all the promises that have been made to them in the name of prices, affordable and within the reach of the common man. Look at the simplicity and austerity that the government has periodically announced, and never came up to the expectations of the people.
I have been thinking about the hour that is to be lost the clock is advanced on Sunday. There must be wisdom in it, which I do not understand. But I would like to be believe that even though we failed with the DST in 2002, and given the enormity of the energy crisis which has assumed monstrous proportions, now there is no reason why another attempt not be made.
But this DST alone will not suffice. Can we ensure that from top to bottom in this society there is a willingness for compliance on energy conservation, keeping in view the gravity that we are faced with. DST alone cannot help us. On its own, it will be a kind of comic relief, if anything at all?
There is a quote from the American poet Longfellow that needs to be reproduced here, that has been on my mind. It reads as "Labour with what we will Something remains undone Till at length it is or seems greater than our strength and bear As the burden of our dreams Pressing on us everywhere."
Death evidently leaves in its wake unfinished business, come what may. How much that will be is relative, and truly a very personal, subjective matter. For the late Khawaja Mujib Shariff two people in particular made it possible for the publication and the launching of a modest collection of his Urdu poetry that he wrote occasionally. That many of his closest friends and colleagues did not know about his bond with verse is symbolic of the way he lived. And then left quietly.
The two persons: his youngest daughter Shazman Shariff, herself a journalist and who now lives in Bangalore, India after she got married, and Jamshed Mirza, Managing Director of Royal Book Company that published his poetry, called "Ghamkadey Mein Merey."
This book was launched on a typical Karachi end May evening (26th May) at the Karachi Gymkhana before a modest crowd of invitees who turned up, despite the challenges of travelling distances in this city. Professor Sehar Ansari was the chief guest.
Shazman working on an impossible deadline to put the book together, and Jamshed Mirza who agreed to print it within ten days after all the text was in, and Karachi Gymkhana which agreed to host the evening all went to create an evening of remembrance for Mujib Shariff. A man, simple, friendly, uncomplaining, with his feet on the ground. And poetry in his heart, as we realise now. His verse reflects the sensitive person he was, and how much that exterior concealed.
He wrote a popular Bridge column for this daily, which appeared every Saturday. But I knew him for almost four decades. It was in The Leader where I first met him in the late sixties, and it was in the Morning News in the mid seventies onwards that I got to know him more. And through common seniors like Syed Manzarul Hasan, Sultan Ahmed, Ashab Naqvi, Brigadier T.H. Siddiqui, Qazi Abrar Siddiqui, I got to know him more. K.M. Shariff was older than me, and senior to me in the world of journalism but never ever made gave that feeling.
He was a fellow traveller in time, and given the inexplicable mysterious manner in which life hands itself out to us, he was one of those I should have spent more time with, and got to know more. But this is no regret, it is a merely realisation. Life, for me has been rewarding in so many ways.
That I was able to have had an affectionate relationship with a seasoned media professional, and a caring, communicative man like Mujib Shariff was one of the ways in which life has blessed me. And all those who knew him have reasons to feel enriched by a man who held back his sadness and gave his smiles and spontaneity all the time.
As says one of his friends that he did not only play bridge and write about it, he was also a bridge between people. As a poet Nasir Kazmi said that "Doston Key Darmian Wajhey Dosti Hai Tu."
I glanced through Mujib Shariff's 134 page book on Monday night and remembered the diverse times when we worked together, and the times those were. The days that are no more. And that there was in our lives a man who meant harm to none, and went about his life, working hard, and playing by the rules, in a society where rules are vague, and they don't matter.
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