Relationships and connections are meant to be maintained. If friendships and enmities can coexist, then even loyalties should be broken where cruelty persists in the face of treachery. Stubborn defiance will cost a life but will not allow one to bow down. Whether this is called wisdom or a peasant’s struggle, the formula is being called correct in light of the sensitivity of the time. Where deals of trade are based on loyalty and self-interest, deals involving one’s life are not struck; instead, one adopts mutual expediency while waiting for the right moment.
Where rules and legal advisories are issued over the phone, taking good big clubs and beating them like a drum, how and where can a poor man, struck by miserable inflation, remain loyal to the truth? If a plain clay pot takes the place of a strong utensil just because it was cheap, then why pay a high price?
When the cells of a far-sighted telescope burn out and the distant object starts to look blurry, should the fault be with the viewer or with the battery and charger? Problems become tangled and wither away when faces, which turn pale at confrontation, hold their heads high and then bow down, while young men roam about with their arms raised. Things that are sold do not double in price; they even go for half their worth. But to buy new ones, a little more money is added to the market. Therefore, silence is a good action. Things arrive in good shape without blemish. The taste of the food changes, but it doesn’t matter; the stomach has to be filled. The enigma that ‘all leaders are pure beads of one rosary while the rest of the public are sinners’ has not yet been solved.
Now, in such a deliberately ignorant society, one should think a hundred times before establishing a relationship. It is necessary to confront the demands of the time, and it should also be sustained. It is also not good to break it, but on the path, at every step, one will clearly see vipers (a type of poisonous snake). They say that the one bitten by a snake fears a rope, but then the wise say that the snake should die and the stick should be saved; the relationship should continue and there should also be food in the mouth. Ultimately, there should be loyalties. This is an era of holding two melons in one hand; just proceed with thought and understanding.
Syed Ghulam Hyder SHah Qalandari
Kunri, Sindh, Pakistan
