Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth

A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.

Fair Science frown’d not on his humble birth,

And Melancholy mark’d him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,

Heav’n did a recompense as largely send:

He gave to Mis’ry all he had, a tear,

He gain’d from Heav’n (’twas all he wish’d) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,

(There they alike in trembling hope repose)

The bosom of his Father and his God. (Thomas Gray)

Here lies a picture in front of me, of a boy from Mithi. His eyes sunken, skin pale and pastel. Tens of hungry flies are buzzing around his tiny nostrils and scrawny ears. He cannot drive them off, for he breathes no more. No woes, there is a Sindhi shawl  around his head- his coffin-that was the only scarf of his mother which she would use on special occasions-visits to relatives- Eids.

The boy and hundreds like him, tender and toy less died a slow painful death. They kept on crying for a few crumbs of bread, but their parents were sufficient only in supplications and tears. They could do nothing, save see their cries getting frailer and sinking to sleep-forever.

Wait, these helpless children were not too far away from the god- fathers of Sindh.Very close to them, these saviors of Sindh were celebrating the ‘Sindh Festivals’, guzzling millions, waving flags and dancing. The deafening sound of ‘zinda hae’ did not let the faint cries reach their ears. The music was too deafening and the sloganeering too ear-splitting (they have been beating their breasts for Sindh for the past 65 years, but did not change their fate, for then who would worship them as gods).

Wait, yet another pause, these Bhuttoes, Zardaris, Mazaaris did flock in desert to discuss and change the fate of Thar. But they gathered in another  desert-Dubai-the deluxe, for  the sand of luckless Sindh  sickens them. Yet more hollow promises would be made, for they have to save their hereditary legacy to rule.

Yet another pause. Punjab Youth Festival was in full swing, and the lions and cubs were occupied in daubing world records. The laptop gimmicks were also afloat. So, the feeble groans of dying innocents and sobs of their hapless mothers went un-heard,un-responded.(These were some nasty media men who flashed those death stricken- faces to public).

Pause. In the days to come,’basant’ would abuzz Lahore, for the culture and customs are the soul of the ‘civilized society’.Ah! The qualified intellectuals would extol the exuberant celeberations, but no one would dry ink for you, o the ill-starred people of Sindh.But breather! Some NGOs would spring into action, sooner than later. Surely, they would sustain you from starvation, to some families though; they have other duties to care about  too.

So, a sea of prayers for you, o the hunger stricken people of Thar (millions of prayers would be raised for you at Makkah by those who travel, in thousands for umera). Not in long future, you would no more appear to the screens, and  would be deserted n the desert, until the next elections to intonate the beguiling sloganeering again.