"Burning Peace..."

On 14th February 2014, A private channel Dunya News aired a program called “Kyoun” which was hosted by Mr.Arshad Shareef. The topic of the program was the agenda of International Secret Agencies behind funding International Non-Profit Organizations working in Pakistan. Now the topic sounds really interesting especially to those who cannot imagine that a country would give so much money just to actually help people. There were guests invited from different International NGOs, one of them being The Art of Living (AOL). I dont represent AOL but I have attended many courses of them and have worked with them for a few months also. My office was based in the peace center of The Art of Living, an amazing house in Banigala where the moment you enter you get calm and relaxed. You can hear beautiful sound of wind chimes, a gorgeous lake to view and everyone extremely nice to you.  It is open to all, with programs promoting good mental and physical health. The inclusiveness extends to create a blossoming of consciousness,well-being and good health through simple breathing techniques, yoga and positive thinking. They also encourage people to take responsibility for society and get involved in serving those in need. AOL has played an active role during the 2005 earthquake and many other community projects.

Coming back to the TV show, Anchor showed some pictures of people doing yoga and he passed some harsh comments on them and sounded very angry especially on a picture in which a number of AOL members were in a yoga position called “child pose”. Child pose looks like the picture below as I couldn’t find the picture the anchor displayed. This is a simple relaxation position in yoga as they say it’s a child’s resting position. I wonder why he was so angry about this position.

While showing a picture of AOL representative with the founder of Art of Living Foundation Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, The anchor asked another very famous guest Mr. Ansar Abbasi invited on the show, if the smiles that Sri Sri brings on people’s faces weren't a threat to our national security and if RAW was behind it. Sri Sri is an enlightened person who has established AOL centers in more than 150 countries and has millions of members all over the world. He aims to spread peace in the world and has designed all the courses of Art of Living himself. He was also nominated for Nobel Peace Award.

I wonder when, SMILING became a threat to a country’s national security. It’s possible that some secret agencies might be funding NGOs for their own interest but it would be a speculation not a fact until there is any evidence.

Knowing the increasing amount of radicalization and terrorism, knowing the effects of such accusations resulting in destroying families, the anchor gave these opinions without any evidence. 

From what my understanding about Art of Living Foundation is, they don’t take funds from any organization. They have a fee for yoga and breathing courses and that fee is used for community service projects. Most of their employees are volunteers while those who are paid are from the teacher’s own pocket.  Art of living has 8000 members in Pakistan including people in veils, hijabs, T-shirts,burqas, beards, clean shaved etc.

 

On 8^th March,2014 a group of eight people entered the Art of Living Center, tied the only two guards that were present in the center, took their mobiles and hit them on their heads. The innocent, hardworking Pashtoon guards who have enough problems in life already were traumatized. Those 8 men put three rooms on fire and had put fuel on another room when the neighbors saw the fire and ran towards their favorite neighbor’s house. Luckily those 8 cowards quickly left the centre in their cars, one being white corolla as seen by one of the neighbors. I hope that the culprits are found and arrested for this heinous crime.

This center is owned by Ms. Shahnaz Minallah, a beautiful spirit who has given ten years of her life to this place making it more beautiful day by day. Her bedroom was burnt to ashes. 

Fortunately, she lives in simplicity so her bedroom didn’t have a bed or a table or a nice lamp but just a pillow, some paintings and lots of books. She sleeps on the floor. Shahnaz Minallah comes from a long line of Sufi Saints from the “KakaKhel” tribe resulting in her, having a deep spiritual nature.

After the incident, I and many others pointed fingers at the mentioned TV show for inciting this violence through hate speech. I blamed it because i know that anybody who has met Shahnaz cannot harm her because she hasn’t hurt anyone. I blamed the show because they accused an INGO without any kind of verification, to be funded by an Indian secret agency known to everyone in Pakistan. 

My request to Mr. Arshad: Sir, I have nothing against you as I know that somewhere you definitely have humanity in your nature too. For the sake of humanity, kindly accuse someone after you have evidence against it as radicals end up burning private properties or even worse. Those two guards did not deserve to be traumatized and hit in the head. Shahnaz didn’t deserve to lose her years of efforts but the radicals don’t understand it. Same topic could be covered responsibly. You can ask as many questions as you want but as a journalist you are not supposed to give your own opinions on TV. You are free to work on your research against the Art of Living Foundation, in fact I suggest you should take one of their courses too. It helped me get rid of insomnia and also anxiety. I stopped biting my nails, many people I know quit smoking and many turning out to be really positive people. Stay Blessed J

Awam Is Corrupt

I was working at school annoyed with the system of why taking new admissions when the classes were over flowing with students and was having my summer vacations when the floods hit Pakistan.  Like a lot of other people I always wanted to do something for humanity so I got a chance to help the flood victims by raising a lot of funds from people of Pakistan and abroad.

 Our first trip was to Nowshera where the situation would sadden anyone as we took basic grocery and I saw an old man open up the grocery bag and eat the dry red beans right in front of my eyes which would explain how hungry those people were. Those circumstances were not easy to ignore, in fact forced us to do more so we raised more money got an idea of what the people needed and what we could get them the next time.

It was Ramadan; we raised a lot of funds and were ready to load the truck including cooked food so that the people could eat fresh food right away without worrying about cooking it first. I asked the truck drivers if they were not fasting so I could arrange for their lunch too when they both gave me these judgmental looks and saying obviously they were fasting so we loaded the truck and went to Paar Nowshera. We made the flood victims make a proper line and started distributing the cooked food. The people in the line were more than the packets of cooked rice and sadly we saw children anxiously waiting to eat something they would not get. Coming back disappointed from there, the person who works at my place accompanying the two drivers told me they took four packets and ate them on their way; they were shy to tell me they were not fasting and so to hide a thing they thought would make me judge them they ate four hungry, sad, flood affected, poor people’s food.

We once arranged an Aftari for 800 people which was covered by PTV and the DCO was to join us. I went alone with two 20 years old boys in my Santro and the DCO entered in a double cabin with three cars following him including the anti terrorism squad. He asked me if he could say on TV  that he helped us arrange this whole Aftari and I didn’t allow him. He was later dismissed from his seat for stealing 800 generators that were to be provided to Nowshera’s flood victims and selling them. He was not asked to return the money.

We raised enough funds to reconstruct 18 Houses in Kheshgi, Nowshera when the donations from people almost stopped as almost everyone contributed what they could afford. I apologized the person Gulnawaz who was helping me work in Kheshgi for not being able to construct more houses right away, he smiled and told me not to worry as they had Imran Khan’s funds coming and providing every family Rs.40,000 and then everyone would be able to work on their houses. I got happy for them when I got a call from him after 6 days that some man named JAMAL came from PTI , gave Rs.80,000 to a man to stay quiet, took the pictures of the houses Meenay Laas rebuilt for them and left.

I got an offer from a business man who opened up his own NGO recently to run it for him. I got very excited for the promotion from a teacher to a Country Manager of an NGO. It was hard for me to run it as I was the only one using his business office not getting funds from donor agencies obviously so soon and was under a continuous pressure of him that he was spending a lot on the NGO and that I had to raise funds. I ignored it in the beginning that he was using people’s money for fuel of an unnecessary car which was not used for helping anyone. I was bored after doing so much within three months for Kheshgi and now not being able to do anything,  when a person gave me some donations from his salary to help the poor people. I planned a women center in Kheshgi and when I asked him about the money we got he said he had to spend it. I asked him on what and he told me to pay an employee who was his niece and didn’t know anything about the Ngos and to repair a laptop and cars and fuel etc so I left the job.

My point is in this country almost everyone is corrupt from a driver to a business man. Those two drivers were talking against the government for sleeping in air conditioned bedrooms not realizing what the flood victims were going through and they were not realizing that they just lied and stole four starving people’s food

The DCO earned more than enough.

Imran Khan talking against corruption doesn’t have any idea that he has corruption going on in his own party.

The businessman talking about making a difference and helping Pakistanis might not need to give taxes as he owns an NGO.