I spent five years with a dream, wrote a book, gave words to an idea, captured a hope in pages, named the book “Save Pakistan”… It was not a novel, nor a collection of poetry, nor a book of memoirs, it was a question, a suggestion, a wish that perhaps we could think seriously about improving our country. The date of the event was fixed, the speakers were contacted, the books were delivered to their homes, the time was taken, everything was ready… But then a strange day dawned, a day that taught me a lot not only about an event, but also about our social attitudes… No speaker came… I don’t know why…? I had to postpone the event… A friend asked…!! If no one comes to the book event, does the book fail…? I smiled and said, if this were the case, half of the world’s great books would never have survived. The fate of books is not written in halls, it is written in the hearts of readers. An event can be postponed, a date can change, a program can be canceled, but how can an idea be postponed? How can a dream be stopped? How can a word be eliminated? I looked at the book on my table and suddenly realized that this book was the same yesterday, it is the same today, its pages have not decreased, its words have not faded, its dreams have not died, its thoughts have not ended… Then what was the loss…? It is just that an obstacle came in the journey… and obstacles do not end the destinations, they only test the travelers. An elder in my village used to say, son…!! If the door does not open at the first knock, do not think that the house is empty, sometimes it takes time for those inside to come. Perhaps the case of ideas is similar, some ideas are not immediately accepted, some dreams are not immediately understood, but…if there is truth in them, they make their own way.
Five years… These were not five days or five months, five years are a long time in a person’s life, in five years children grow young, friends change, circumstances change… and sometimes a person himself changes. But there are some dreams that do not leave a person despite the passage of time, this book was also something like that for me, whenever I saw the problems of Pakistan, a question arose in my heart… Are we born only to complain…? Is our job only to point out the shortcomings…? Or should we also find solutions…? Perhaps this question forced me to pick up the pen… I thought about education, I thought about the judiciary, I thought about security, I thought about the economy, I thought about tourism, minerals, ports, the constitution, governance, terrorism and other issues… And then I transferred whatever I understood, whatever I learned, onto the pages… I knew that not everyone would agree with me, disagreement is the beauty of the world of knowledge, my only wish was that the conversation would start, people would think, ask questions, give their opinions… And if there was a better proposal than my proposal, then they would bring it forward… Then the day I had been waiting for came… And then what was probably not included in my plan happened, the event had to be postponed, for a moment my heart was definitely heavy, but then my eyes fell on the few friends who had come that day, those who were neither speakers, nor special guests. Neither did they have big speeches, nor big positions, they were just sincere people… And sometimes a few sincere people are more valuable than a packed hall. That day I realized that life doesn’t always give us what we expect, but often it gives us what we need… And maybe that day I needed a lesson too.
That day I also understood another thing, most of us measure success in a very wrong way, we count the chairs, we count the people, we count the applause, we count the compliments., But we don’t see whether the purpose for which we started the journey is still alive or not. When I returned home at night, I looked at the book lying in the cupboard, it was silent, but in its silence there was a strange question, Did you write to me so that there would be a ceremony…? I kept looking at it for a while, then I found the answer myself… No. …I did not write this book for an event, I wrote this book with the hope that maybe a young person would read it, maybe a teacher would consider some of its ideas, maybe a student would stop at some of its pages, maybe someone would disagree with me and suggest a better way, and all this is still possible, because the postponed event was held, not the book… I am still the same person who started this journey five years ago. I still have the same pen, the same thoughts, the same dreams, the same desire that Pakistan becomes a developed, educated, fair and safe country. If a door closes, dreams do not end, if a path stops, the journey does not end, if an event is postponed, ideas do not die, perhaps the greatest lesson in life is that people who reach their destination do not mourn the obstacles, they find a way to go around them.