2012 - The Magic

2012 was a good year. Might not have been the best, but it definitely was one of the good. It had its fair share of firsts and lasts. And with every laugh, every tear, the only thing that was constant was the feeling that ‘this too shall pass’.

As per one of my New Year’s Resolution to remember not the milestones but the magical moments, I am committing some of those moments to (digital) paper, in order to preserve them for the coming years:

• Shifted home from the hostel.
• Cut my birthday brownie amidst mounds on snow, in Murree.
• Braved a huge storm, and came out on the other sider a bit stronger – or so I like to believe.
• Organized and attended one of the biggest events in Islamabad, with a star-studded lineup of judges (Tariq Amin, Farhan Saeed, Osman Khalid Butt, Aisha Linnea, Shahbaz Shigri, etc.) and also an Ali Azmat concert.
• Got my first-ever rose! <3>
• Bumped into an old friend after ages, at Chaaye Khana – which I also discovered this year, and fell in love with immediately.
• Was a part of the “Humsafar” generation! Yes, I did enjoy how Attiqa Odho’s character tortured Khirad and I fell in love with Ashar’s perfection! Haye. <3 font="font">
• Said farewell to my original university batch-mates.
• Baked, baked and baked!
• Fifty Shades – OMG!
• Found out that one of my batch-mates in university had studied with me back in kindergarten. :)
• Hung out with some of the most awesome people FAST has thrown my way; Nasir Saeed, Sara Fatima, Taimur Riaz Khan and of course, Tayyaba! <3 font="font">
• Attended (physically or in spirit) a number of weddings, of people in my very own age-group.
• And finally, survived the End of The World – the one the Mayan predicted.

And not to forget, all the amazing people I met this year, and I’ll only be mentioning a few of the prominent ones here: Namra Ashraf, Kashif Zia, Junaid Javed, Areej Yasin, & the lot from FAST-Khi (Mehdi Haider, Qaxim Hussain, Furqan Shakoor, Ahsan Aziz, Obaid-ur-Rehman, Wasif Zia Syed, Shazem Raza, Abdul Mannan, Hassan Ahmed, Syed Asim Hassan, (and 2 other Coding Hazar guys whose names I can’t remember)  Zunaira Shabbir, Hina Jawaid – sorry, if I’m missing someone out.) You all made this year worth remembering! <3 font="font">

Here’s to hoping 2013 brings finality where it is required and adventures where they are desired.

Final Act

So, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Let’s get done with the bad news first, eh?

The bad news is that we’re stuck, all of us, in a cycle of redundancy. The rich are just getting richer and the poor are getting colder, sicker and hungrier by the minute. And the institutions that we built to be the corporate ‘Robin Hood’s, to take from the rich and give to the poor, are doing nothing if making sure that the world stays stuck. All these people, all these conspiracies and all the drama, it’s all a ruse to keep us distracted from the truth. The Third World is going to stay the Third World and the First World will keep sucking the life from it until there is nothing left but bones and then it will use them to make broth. The “Institutions of Democracy”, the “Warriors for the World”, the “Saviors of Humanity” are nothing but cover-ups to keep us from seeing the bigger picture; corporates rule the world, son, and there’s nothing you can do about it unless you become one of them. The economy is being crippled with aid, they’d rather feed us than teach us how to make our own food, and with this they’ve given rise to a new form of slavery, the corporate slavery. We eat when they tell us, we sleep when they tell us, we meet our families when they tell us – all for a hot meal and a roof over our children’s heads.

This world is going nowhere, ladies and gentlemen. The oppressor’s are in a habit of oppressing and the oppressed have gotten lazy and comfortable in their mental incapacitation. We’re in a rut and there doesn’t seem to be a way out. This is the end of the world, because this is the end of humanity. We’ve reached self-actualization – the oppressors know that they were born to rule and the oppressed have accepted that they were born to serve. There’s nowhere left to go now.

The good news is there’s a revolution coming. It might not be tomorrow or the next day, it might not even be next year. It might still be a couple of generations down the road. But mark my words, ladies and gentlemen, a revolution is coming. And this time it will be bigger than any we’ve ever seen. The Global Village will merge together and only two entities will remain; the Oppressors and the Oppressed. There may or may not be a paradigm shift but this final show of defiance will decide, definitely, what eternity will look like for our race.

Now all we are left to do is to sit back, relax, and wait for the Oppressed to give birth to the Revolutionaries. And then they can start telling us what to do.