Khuda ke wastay!

WHY?

Why do we always invoke GOD? On every little occasion and every thing? why do we call GOD and ask people to do this and that all because GOD will get happy with them.

The beggars on the street got me thinking on this, for while I waited in the car on Shahbaz for nans, this woman in black burqa kept knocking on the window glass asking me to give her money - Khuda ke wastay.

What does this invocation actually means in our society as it is slapped and rolled around our tongues and in our ears many times in a day. We are constantly asking other people to do things for us not because we deserve them, or they might want to do them on their own account but only to please GOD. Do we, ever, stop at that time to think which GOD are we talking about? Is it the God of Islam? Is it the God of the whole world, the GOD that we all believe in in one way or another, or is it the God of some other religion? it baffles me, this constant calling of god to whom we otherwise are not paying any allegiance to. God is hardly present in our otherwise busy lives, but the minute some trouble comes our way we run to GOD and ask others to help us in the name of that god whom we never really remember.

There is misery in this sordid city, and nothing demonstrates it more vividly than the beggars plying the city streets and every traffic signal. The minute your car stops anywhere on any street there comes a bevy of miserable, maligned, mauled, damaged and seriously physically challenged and deformed people who ask you for alms in the name of ALLAH, and GOD. They hark to our conscience and our guilt for having much much more than they have (true!) and beg in the name of that God who has clearly forsaken them. Small children barely 4 years old beg and say the same thing - give in the name of God, women, children, old bedraggled people all hovering to ask, to plead, to literally beg for a piece of bread or some money.

We all are very much aware of the fact, that there is a Mafia running the gangs of beggars in the city and the police is very much a party to the take, there are horror stories about children being abducted and paralysed and deformed on purpose so they can beg by portraying a pitiable sight.

The more beggars I see, the more I feel that we have touched rock bottom as a society, as a Muslim country that is forever brandishing its Islamic Republic status; We have failed, we have failed as a nation, as a country and certainly as people, when amidst us there are thousands of people suffering in broad daylight, right in full view and all we do, other than giving a token sum when we are in rather gracious and giving mood, is look the other way and forget, or at times complain about the nuisance.

The worst are the women and girls carrying supposedly drugged babies barely a month or two old in sizzling heat. The heads of the babies lolling about, their naked bodies twisted and turned as they are held in all sorts of manners usually spilling out from within the grasp of these women.

Can we do anything about them? these homeless, fate-less people? If only - Khuda ke wastay!!!!!