Happy 62nd Birthday

http://www.dailynationalcourier.com/national_courier/Special_supplement/14August_09/1.htm

By Syed M. Aslam

You flow in my veins, run in my arteries, live in my heart, streak through my eyes, reside in my brain and are always in my thought. I admit, as Elvis Presley said in one of his top hit songs, You were always on my mind only to confess that:
Maybe I didn't treat you/ Quite as good as I should have/ Maybe I didn't love you/ Quite as often as I could have/ Little things I should have said and done/ I just never took the time/ You were always on my mind/ May be I didn't hold you/ All those lonely, lonely times/ And I guess I never told you/ I'm so happy that you're mine/ If I make you feel second best/ I'm sorry I was blind/ You were always on my mind..."
Your, and mine, Founding Fathers selfless, uncorrupt and morally upright as they were would have never dreamed that You, the Land of Pure, would be splashed with so much filfth, dirt and, inhumane exploitation, corruption and what not. If they would have they, I believe would not had wasted a second to shelf the idea of carving You against all odds and amidst all sacrifices- human, materialistic and otherwise.
Remember, when one of Your Founding Fathers and the first Prime Minister Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan were assassinated in cold blood at the start of his speech on October 16, 1951 all that he had in his holed pocket were "few annas". And he neither had any money in the bank nor any assets or movable or immovable properties. Today, the majority of a gazetted government officers of Grade 17 to 22 government officials have huge stashes in banks, not only local but also foreign.
Over the years, first secretly, then openly and now menacingly You are systematically being deprived of all of Your finest qualities- moral uprightness, selflessness, caring, premise of equality and justice, integrity, independence, sovereignty, brotherhood, etc. Today The usurpers have replaced Your moon-like beautiful face with skull posted on high-voltage power transmission lines.
Today we have what a slogan, as reported by Economist, written on a wall read in Paraguay, "We have two types of politicians- the incapable and those capable of anything". We have also sunk to a level best described by Italian journalist, short story writer and novelist, Italo Calvin, who said, "Nobody these days holds the written [and spoken] word in such high esteem as police states do..." [addition mine].
We have also sunk to a level where we as a people have become totally indifferent to all things fine by indulging in collective criminal silence of sorts. "It is the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them." This is what world-fame American author and humorist Mark Twain about his country but it seems as it was said about us.
Our Founding Fathers dreamt of making You a welfare state but over the years You have been turned into a Security State on this or that pretext the most commonly heard being National Security. Late Edward William Proxmire, a member of Democratic Party who served the US Senate from 1957 to 1989, said, "Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous". I am not blaming you. I am only trying my best not to let You streak through my eyes in tears or blood gushing out of my arteries. I have to get this load, this heavy burden off my chest so as not to die of suffocation- both mental and physical. Of course, You are as pure, as unblemished, as moon-like beautiful, as innocent, as caring as ever and so were the Founding Fathers.
I feel much better after getting the heavy load off my body and soul.
Somerset Maugham said, If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.
Happiest Birthday. Like millions of Your sons and daughters I take pride in saying, "You're always on my mind".. Forgive us our crimes of omission and commission of our elders and us. We are at Your beck and call with all our blood, flesh, physical and mental prowess whenever needed- asked or otherwise.