Fields of disillusionment

"Nit naye naqsh banatay ho, mita daitay ho,

Jaanay kis jurm-e-tamanna ki saza detay ho.

Kabhi kankar ko bana detay ho heeray ki kani,

Kabhi heeron ko bhi mitti mein mila detay ho."

"You constantly craft new designs, only to erase them;

Who knows for what crime of desire we are being punished?

Sometimes You turn a mere pebble into a diamond;

Sometimes You reduce even diamonds to dust."

— Naz Khialvi, Tum Ek Gorakh Dhanda Ho (You Are a Riddle)

How do you adjust to a reality designed to torture you or rip you off? Torture and torment are the key plot devices of the brilliant Netflix existential comedy series The Good Place. In this story, a group of recently deceased individuals are informed that after death, they have arrived in heaven, or the good place. They are led to believe that they are there as a result of a bureaucratic mistake. It later turns out that the whole situation is a ruse to torture them because they are actually in the bad place, or hell. Do not complain about spoilers. The first season containing this plot twist dropped in 2016. If you have not watched it yet, odds are you were never going to watch it.

Extortion and ripping people off are the central themes of another interesting comedy series called Upload. In 2033, technology has advanced to the point where people can upload their consciousness to a virtual world after their death. Run by corporate giants, these virtual worlds charge you huge sums. One such world is Lakeview. If you cannot afford the high maintenance costs, you are relegated to a basic digital afterlife plan where users receive only two gigabytes of data per month in Lakeview's basement, forcing them to stay mostly frozen or move slowly to conserve data, unlike the luxurious unlimited options.

You may ask why all this buildup. For good reason. If you lead the life of an ordinary citizen in the Islamic Republic, you might be able to relate to at least one of the two stories above, if not both. While not dead, your daily reality must either continuously try to punish you or ask for more money.

This is the ground floor. Here, you do not get much agency apart from the fleeting domain over your body and soul. You must toil to make ends meet. Here, everything you do, your work, your home, your commute, your life is a response to the stimuli introduced by someone else. And how is the software in your mind kept peaceable and pliant? Through the adventures of association or substitution. You like watching sports or stories on television. You do not contribute to either outcome, but the thrill of what you watch keeps you going. Or if the Oliver in you asks for more, you are dropped in the middle of political tribalism, where you are asked to either root for or, in rare cases, work for one of the tribes.

And if you still have enough wits about you to question the given choices or the purpose of it all, you are told that the journey is its own reward. And those who pick these choices for you, introduce these stimuli, continue to prosper as you rip apart your fellow man in a bout of overzealous tribalism.

All these thoughts rushed to my mind when I heard about the conviction of former General Faiz Hameed. You realise that until a few years ago, this man, along with his immediate boss, was responsible for shaping our reality and making choices on our behalf. If you were active in any power-adjacent field in that period, it is hard to see how you would have escaped their influence. Even if you were not the target, there was a likelihood that you could be roadkill. As such roadkill, many thoughts are flooding my mind. I do not take any pleasure in another man's fall from power, so I will not pile on. This story is far from over, and many moving parts are yet to align properly to offer any satisfactory closure.

What bewilders me, however, is the nature of the accusations. You will forgive me if I do not pretend to be shocked by the gentleman's political misadventures. All of that was already happening almost entirely in the open. Given the chequered history of this country, I am pleasantly, if moderately, surprised that there was some reckoning in the end. However, what shocks me most is the nature of the allegations regarding blatant corruption. Particularly the trigger. The manner in which the Top City saga reportedly unfolded is enough to shake your faith in the system.

Remember, we are accustomed to some form of corruption at the grassroots level, but such an open abuse of power at such an entrenched level defies imagination. If the system raised any red flags, they were kept hidden from the public eye. But not the abuse. Many of my peers would regale us with such stories at late-night parties. But the man got promoted. And secured one prestigious assignment after another, coming within striking distance of the top job. Had his emboldened abuse not reached the political limits, he could have easily walked away. What does it say about the system and its tastes?

And a decline in taste is becoming our ultimate undoing. As the system's tolerance of such abuses grew, its taste in human resources, the quality of discourse and its foundational myths fell sharply. Our cultural products have declined so dramatically that individuals who dominate the discussions about the industry are referred to as Ducky Bhai and Mr Patlu. As a result, the ground floor resembles a dystopia. Our cultural icons are found busy debating a substandard and culturally oblivious Indian film about the Lyari gang war.

For decades, I have told young people that all hope is not lost. That they can be the change they want to be. That if they abandon ship at such a critical juncture, they would forfeit their right to call it their own. I still try to do that, dear reader. But I visibly struggle. It is difficult to inspire others, let alone the sharp minds of the youth, when the question on your mind is why I did not bail when I had a chance. The elite of the country have repeatedly told us there is no space for upward mobility, no end to such abuse or the musical chairs of power that go on. Suddenly, what I mistook for well-earned and proud battle scars resembles the signs of masochism and self-flagellation. It is hard to offer hope while standing right in the middle of the fields of disillusionment.