February 24, 2007

Dear Diary,

I saw something that I thought I would never see in my life. I came back from school on Monday (which was a holiday) and saw that our neighbours had set up a tent in front of their house, blocking the street and occupying some space in front of our house as well. I flared up at once.

I had always tolerated their unjust behaviour and had never said anything to them. My dad, who doesn’t like arguments, just told me not to say anything and leave it alone as there are so many people like that in Pakistan. I couldn’t stand it this time and asked the man standing in front of our neighbours’ house: Yeh tameez hoti hai kia? (Are these proper manners?). He didn’t reply at all.

My dislike for these neighbours goes some time back. Their daughters would stare at us whenever we’d come out to play in the rain. They would stare shamelessly. And a few weeks back, some relative of theirs parked their car in front of our lawn and it remained there for two weeks! We complained but to no avail. Their relative had apparently gone somewhere and parked his car without leaving the keys.

For the tent, my mind started thinking on all sorts of schemes for revenge. I thought of cutting the tent’s rope tied to our house, throwing an egg on the tent but in the end I decided to simply stare at the tent from our roof. Good for them they removed the part of the tent in front of our house. I stayed on the roof for 45 minutes that night and no one saw me there! But what I found out was that the tent was set up to celebrate our neighbour’s return from Hajj!

I was appalled at this. People who perform Hajj, have had all their sins forgiven and when they come back, they earn more sins during their celebrations by causing trouble to others. How can people be like this in the world? Not caring for others?

I hope the government passes some laws on putting up tents on the streets and ensures that they are followed.

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