Of celebrations and cynicism

A storm full of white and green ran into the mundane brown and grey of an institution boasting of centuries of recollections. The dhol waalas decked out in their gaudy yellow and orange sprinted right behind trying to keep up with the passion that drove the youth to run so very fast waving cloth that adorned crescents and stars. Laps of the field followed, the flags fluttering in the air right along with the voices of 300 people, all tied together in ecstasy. Amidst huffing and puffing they all came to a slow halt and grinned partially because they were overawed by the spectacle they had aroused, but mainly because they didn’t really know what to do next. Circles were formed, people were dancing, the dhol waalas were their gods, and they were just faithful followers abiding to their religion of beats.

Euphoria doesn’t strike often, people don’t laugh for such long spells of time, but it was just one of those days in whish their was a flagrant disregard for calm, composure and self control. Their voices were hushed by the booms of the admin, but they never really subsided into nothingness. Every given moment, a stray verse of an old national song was screamed out, followed closely by shrieks and calls. They were all too young to bother with the fact that these songs, these flags, were slowly loosing meaning in a country that was slowly loosing its soul. Disillusionment was far away, nowhere even close to where they drove their cars, their heads out of the windows, the voices of Vital Signs blaring out of their decks. So naïve, so immature- yet so beautiful.

Happy birthday Pakistan.