Day 7: Thinking about Day 200!!!

A week has passed since the tragedy befell on the dwellers of Kashmir .One week later , the omens at Sahri were scary ones. With CNN broadcasting the rerun of The show with John Stewart and everyone talking about the quake I went to sleep with some disturbance.

It was the week that shook Pakistan, made her citizens brave their biggest catastrophe. Pakistan will never be the same. With the mammoth task of rebuilding the quake-hit zone, budgets in the coming years will reflect the squeeze on expenditure in other areas. The Nation, so as to say, will be more aware of the disaster management next time around and the uncles will grumble lesser about the “lack of spirit and patriotic zeal” in today’s youth.

The cities are strewn with collection booths of relief goods .Hundreds of thousands of rupees are being generated for the relief funds. All kinds of organizations from religious organizations to local NGO’s to Islamic charities based in Europe and North America are collecting funds. People who were previously criticizing NGO’s for stirring the rape cases are all but mum .Joining the fundraisers club are amateurs who are collecting goods and funds for the first time. I am skeptical of their promise however.

Kashmir-Chalo fever is in full swing. Someone was telling me the other day that he was ready for going to Kashmir along with his friends but the military didn’t allow them. TV show hosts are also discouraging the naive and “jazbati” youth to go to Kashmir .I wonder how come all the TV show host are using the same word i.e Jazabati for describing the state of mind of youngsters .Perhaps there is something in the back of mind which says “we made a lot of emotional decisions in our youth and so do the youth of today. They can’t think rationally”

Bloggers are fortunate enough to have two luxuries which not many people have in Pakistan
The “ability” to find time to write
The ability to write in English

They are using these advantages heavily to help with the relief work by reporting about the quake and posting links on their own blogs or other blogs. However Pakistani bloggers can bring the biggest breakthrough Pakistan needs in the relief work .i.e getting the message across to other countries where the general public is indifferent to what Pakistanis are going through. The Pakistani bloggers can do this by writing letters and articles to foreign newspapers about the quake. In addition they can raise the issue in foreign community blogs too.

My institute has collected more than Rs 50,000 and a truckload of relief goods yet. Here I am reminded of people who are coercing others to donate for the cause .No wonder they are doing more damage to the cause then aiding it. And the people who volunteer in the places which are overflowing with volunteers are also not helping .Six months down the road ,how many People will still be part of the rebuilding process?. To make sure that People are part of the relief work even then, it has to be made part of their lifestyles .And that requires everyone to do for this cause, what they can do through their interests rather than merely following the crowd.
So are you really up for volunteering in Kashmir?