Murderous decisions

I’ve always had a great deal of trouble making big decisions. Smaller ones, like I’ll take this road to avoid that riot, or I’ll part my hair this way to hide that forehead zit, those are easily made. A coin toss can handle the burden of responsibility. But the larger decisions, the ones that can define the rest of your life, require deep focus and clear-headedness. Unfortunately, in this age when our brains are constantly being assaulted with noise, it requires extreme changes to one’s environment to create a space conducive to that kind of concentration. Some people take long drives on empty stretches of road. Just put the car into a high gear, turn up the stereo and let their mind become empty of all unnecessary distractions until either the final decision is made or they run out of petrol and are then held up for their cell phone and wallet. Others turn a room in their house into sensory deprivation tanks by closing all the windows and doors and sitting very still. I know someone who exercises. The endorphins released provide a zen-like clarity that allows for complete focus on all but the most important factors that need consideration. A girl I was once obsessed with used to find that blaming me for all that was wrong with her life gave her the clarity she needed. Julius Caesar, it is said, would stop eating and just become very still. Sherlock Holmes was written as ingesting large amounts of opium and playing the violin. My personal approach involves curling up under a blanket while bouncing my head off a pillow repeatedly. To each his own. It is a deeply personal moment and sometimes we all just need to do whatever it takes. The political parties active in Karachi, apparently, can’t make a decision without killing lots of people.

It’s not a traditional approach to meditation, I will grant them that much. And I am forced to wonder whether it was the first method they tried or was there a lot of fruitless searching for empty roads to drive on and lighting of scented candles before finally realising that mass murder was the key to attaining true clarity. Also, what is it exactly about the killing of scores of people in a short time span that gives them the required focus? Is it the concentration needed to organise a cull on such a large scale? Maybe the rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire and the following thud of a body hitting the floor creates a sort of hypnotic trance. Regardless, the 100 people who were killed last week in the violence that resulted in a return to the status quo have died knowing that at least their lives were sacrificed for a worthy cause. Without their senseless murders, the parties could never have split so dramatically with angry pronouncements and then reconciled their differences in such a short time. Many have said that their eventual reunion was a foregone conclusion. That the PPP and MQM are like that married couple who fight every six months and the breaking of furniture, tossing of crockery and killing of bystanders is just a part of the process they need to work through to stay together (okay maybe I’m the only one who says that). Nevertheless, we may all know the way the story ends, but that doesn’t mean the participants don’t require the predetermined performances to reach their goal. So if it took 100 murders at the hands of political parties and roving gangs of disgruntled wives and girlfriends that Rehman Malik is trying to warn us about, for that final major decision to get back to exactly where we were two weeks ago to be made, then so be it.






Published in The Express Tribune, July 21^st, 2011.