I realized I was being too cynical about everything. Maybe that is what being a realist does to you. You overanalyze things and assume the worst. But certain things I came across this week proved to me that there is indeed a glimmer of hope. A fire, rekindled. A resolution is in the works for declaring Pakistan a sister city to New York.
Read that again with a straight face. I am elated. We are being declared the sister city to New York. Who thought this resolution was necessary? From all the things we could have gotten as tax-paying citizens, this is the best we have managed. I thought we were boycotting them? If this wasn’t enough joy, I learned about the auction of custom digit number plates. And I was blown away.
These aren’t the kind where you get to write your name using a mix of alphabets and numbers. These are state-of-the-art custom number plates with 3 digits, 2 digits, and a single digit. The fewer the digits, the more expensive the number plate. That is why the highest amount fetched from the auction of a single-digit number plate was only 100 million rupees. It isn’t easy surviving in this economy. Try living without a custom digit license plate; it isn’t easy to not stand out.
On the bright side, the funds raised from this auction will be used for the rehabilitation of those affected by floods which caused devastation in the province. 2,251 houses would be built for those affected. Now, don’t ask me which floods or which victims. I am just as oblivious as everyone else. But next time you see a custom digit number plate, pat the driver on the back. A noble man spent his money for a noble cause.
Happiness, just like money, will continue to elude you if you keep pursuing it. Let matters reveal themselves in the manner they flow. I let my matters flow to the tick of the clock. Which reminds me, TikTok. A menace to society and a passion for the unemployed. Nothing has caused more damage to our sanity than TikTok. And luckily, we have decided to remove controversial content from TikTok too. While we’re at it, let’s just remove TikTok from its roots. Counsellor of Khayaban e Bukhari, thank me later.
But why do we as a nation try imposing our dictation on just about everything? Those of us who read the paper daily know that the Federal Government has upped its effort to regulate social media by presenting yet another bill before the Parliament. My question is why? Why do we feel the need to regulate everything to bend it to our liking? First, it was YouTube, then Facebook, now it’s ‘Social Media’ which is alarmingly a wider definition.
Has our history hurt us to the extent that we’ve developed Stockholm syndrome? We need to get our affairs in order first. Before we attempt to regulate and control social media, let us regulate our conscience and our own thoughts. We cannot and should not be imposing our will on everything. Some things would work better if we did not poke our noses into them. Moral corruption is what we need to eliminate. Not social media.
We have more pressing issues at hand. We have infrastructure that needs to be built and repaired. We have pipelines that need water running through them. We need electricity. We need these basic necessities. We don’t need social media regulation. All in all, it is time that we rid ourselves of TikTok and instead acquire these single-digit number plates. Maybe then, we’ll start building homes for those affected by floods too. Until then, I don’t know where to go from here.
—The writer is a lawyer with a Master’s degree from Northeastern University.
