Mamarha Afridi
I sat under the open sky, look at the moon, a full bright yellowish moon. Which hugged the entire panoramic view with its white light. I sighed and said, I used to love you a lot.
There is beauty, love, and acceptance in every human being, which is covered by darkness. One needs light to uncover that beauty.
I remember when I was a kid, I used to love everyone and everything without any reason. I would sit under the open sky talked to the moon. Then when walked toward my room. While walking, I was watching the moon. And scream sees I told you moon likes me and care for me. The moon seems that it also took a step with my step…
I used to be so chubby and sometimes get extra attention because of my colored eyes and chubby cheeks. I loved myself so much that I would stand before the mirror to look at myself and smile. As my circle expands, I make friends who did not object like the moon but they were human. I remember my friends calling me fat, and Parata faced. I was bullied by them just because I was the chubbiest in my friend circles. This was the day I stepped into a world of hatred. I started hating myself. Crying every time in a mirror about why I am fat. If even it was mid of winter and snowfall, I would beg my mother I don’t want to wear a sweater than I appeared fattier. I was so foodie but still, I would starve myself. and when I lose so much weight than people used to call me skeleton. And make you hate yourself
Soon my circle was expanding. I start going to school. I started learning more ways how to hate someone without any reason. I was sharing my disk with a Christian girl, named Bisal, soon we became good friends. We would share our lunch boxes and play together. One of my seniors told me don’t eat from her lunch box. She is not a Muslim. They don’t agree with our believes and religion. They spit on food so Muslims would eat and convert to their religion. And yes, he succeeded. I started hating her and avoided spending time with her. I would not drink water from the school as I was having fear if they spit on it and I converted to Christianity.
I soon made new friends and I shared my and moon friendship stories. They were so amazed that how you could do friendship with the moon. I would ask the moon to gift me some chocolates and in a few days, I found what I asked. ( mother used to bring these stuff and fulfill my wishes which I asked from the moon)
One day, I was in grade first. We were studying science. There was a picture of a man wearing a white outfit from toe to head. Standing beside the American flag. Our teacher Madam Fariha told us that the man is the first astronaut who stepped on the moon. My whole fantasy and the utopian world crashed. I started hating the moon, as to how ugly the moon looks like. The brightness that I am seeing is all fake.
Not so far, I read a chapter, two-nation theory, and started hating, Hindus, Indians, and Hindi. The people I never meet, and they do nothing wrong with me but I start hating them. My baji who teaches me the Quran teaches me to hate the female who does not wear dopata. I was told that if they did not cover hair, it is a sign of a bad girl. Without any reason, I would hate every girl or woman walking with open hair. I hate the people, who were hated by my parents, siblings, relatives, and friends without any reason. Knowing that they never did wrong to me.
I am taught to hate every people who have a different ideology than yours. Instead of teaching me to respect other ideologies and beliefs. That the opposite of love is not hate but indifference.
We have been put in a competition, to win, win, and win. And if someone becomes better than you, hate them, get jealous.
We are taught that hating yourself is okay but loving yourself is selfish. Don’t put your self first.
I sometimes wonder how much energy we are wasting by hating people without any reason. We just accept and love our beliefs, race, ethnicity, ideology, and religion and hate other than that.
Cant, we love other people without any reason as we hate them without any reason?.
By hating them without. Can we just ignore the color? The race the identity, the believes, the religion, and love humanity as a human only.
Cant we behave like mother nature, who cares for you even we are ruining it?. We become parasites on our host earth. It has a reason to hate us. But still, nature only bestowed upon us. Cant, we learn how to love without reason from mother nature?
