It’s a pity that sometimes the people who sincerely wish to do something constructive for their country are treated as strangers bythose who call the shots
THE huge and hefty deputy director looked straight in my eyes, and exclaimed, “So, you are an alien!”
I bowed my head, and said, “Yes sir, I am an alien.” Without going through my registration form the deputy director asked, “What is the country of your origin?”
I said, “India.”
“India!” Startled, he asked, “How long have you been in Pakistan?”
“Fifty-seven years,” I said.
“Fifty-seven years!” The tough deputy director almost sprung from his seat, and asked, “Are you confessing you sneaked into Pakistan at the time of the partition of India?”
“I did not sneak into Pakistan.”
“Then, how come are you in Pakistan for the last 57 years?”
“I was born in Karachi.”
“But, didn’t you tell me your country of origin was India?”
“Yes, I did,” I said, “At the time of my birth in 1936, Karachi was in India, rather British India.”
The huge deputy director began scrutinizing my registration form.
It was after reading an advertisement of the National Aliens Registration Authority, abbreviation NARA, in the newspapers that I in the heart of my hearts had complimented the government of Pakistan, and decided to get registered as a national alien. NARA is the brain child of geniuses sitting among the high ranking functionaries tasked with running the affairs of the government of Pakistan. I thanked heavens. The rulers had finally reconciled with the existence of national aliens in Pakistan. It can’t be more torturous for a person to live a life of an outcast in his own country. Isolation is the severest punishment a society inflicts on a person who exercises his fundamental right to dissent. It has been guaranteed to us in the Constitution. But then, who cares for the Constitution!
I do not know what prompted our government to register the national aliens in the country. Maybe the rapidly growing number of the aliens among the Pakistanis alarmed the rulers and they judiciously decided to keep a track of them. The government maintains accurately enumerated figures of the frustrated, insane, demented, lunatic, and psychopaths in Pakistan. The government also knows the number of sick persons who suffer from Aids, tuberculosis, diabetes, heart diseases, cancer, depression, and other malignant ailments. The percentage of the children not going to the school, the dropouts, the illiterates, and the unemployed is known to the government. The rulers know the number of sick and starving men, women, and children who survive, sleep, and die on footpaths. With the registration of the local aliens the government would be able to count on fingers the number of the expedient few who uphold the deeds and the misdeeds of the ruling clique.
I am not a born alien. With the passage of time I have transformed into an alien in my own country. The rulers, their functionaries in judiciary and executive, the parliamentarians, the law makers and the law breakers appear strange to me. The system smacks of alienation for the dissidents. Prior to my seeing an advertisement of NARA in the newspapers for the registration of the aliens I had always thought I would choke to death someday for being an alien in the country, wherein once I was not an alien. I decided to avail the opportunity. I collected the registration form, filled it carefully, and deposited it with the lower staff in NARA. One day I was summoned to appear before the deputy director for removing certain anomalies from my application form.
I appeared before the bald deputy director. He was as hefty and as tough as an ox. From his flattened nose I guessed, he must have remained a street fighter in his youthful years. He spoke in a hoarse voice, and said “So, you were born in Karachi!”
“Yes sir.”
“What makes you think you are an alien?”
“I do not think I am an alien,” I said, “I certainly am an alien.”
“In what way are you an alien?”
“The environs have become hostile and unfamiliar to me,” I thought for a while, and said, “I can’t reconcile either with recurrent martial laws, or with the degenerated politicians. This county has been starving for democracy for the last 57 years.”
At that juncture the tough deputy director was joined by a couple of odd-looking muscular men in plain clothes. They sank in the sofa placed beneath a widow shimmering with mercuric blinds. I said, “The Muslim leadership desired for a separate homeland, but they did not deserve it. They have made a mockery of their own country.”
“You can’t be registered as an alien.”
The deputy director placed his massive arms on the table, leaned forward, and surprised me with a blunt question, “Would you like to be sent back to the country of your origin, the British India?”
