Aye Friends, getting old is a helluva thing yes! Yesterday morning after writing the Bit, out of the goodness of my heart, and my civic responsibility, (smile) I decided to at least clear the snow from my porch and the walkway. But would you believe that after about ten minutes out there, having only cleaned the porch and the steps leading down to the walkway, I began coughing? What really annoyed me is that I had been cough free for the previous two days. Well that coughing situation put paid to all my heartfelt goodness and civic responsibility, especially when the snow on the walkway was almost a foot high. If they wanted to charge or fine me for not clearing the walkway, then so be it, but I surely wasn’t going to continue doing anything that made me cough! What knocked me for a further six, was that later in the evening, after a short nap, I got up and felt this terrible pain in my right arm and shoulder. I had to laugh, because I had been fine all day. But them’s the breaks! (smile) Now that got me to thinking that if I was in T & T, taking in the wonderful sights and sounds of Carnival, I wouldn’t be having any stupid aches and pains and coughs. I wouldn’t be able to jump and prance, like I used to, but the old bones would have been warm, flexible and relaxed in the hot sun. Chuh! Anyway, today, Tuesday, is the day for the real Big Mas, where all the pretty costumes and their wearers come out to parade and play. Let’s hope and pray that everything goes off okay for all the pre-Lenten celebrations around the world, and no serious disasters or evil doings mar the festivities. And we’ll continue with our Bit from yesterday: ‘Then Jesus said unto them, I will ask you one thing: Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it?’ Ah Friends, what a potential time bomb of a question back in those overly strict and religious times! Now yesterday in the background leading up to the Bit, we saw where Jesus reminded the Pharisees of Bruh David and his men eating the holy bread in the temple meant only for the priests, when they were hungry and on the run from Saul. (1Sam.21:1-6) After that ’He said unto them, That the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.’ (Luke 6:5) Obviously the Pharisees weren’t thrilled by that remark either, but they let it ride. Listen to the scholars comment on that verse. ‘Having already asserted His prerogative, like God Himself, to forgive sins (Luke 5:20), Jesus now assumes the right to interpret the Old Testament in a way far different from that of the religious leaders of His time.’ So true my people! And that’s the background to this later Sabbath when Jesus enters the synagogue and teaches, as He is won’t to. On this particular day though, a man with a withered right hand is present among the listeners, and as usual the hypocrite scribes and Pharisees are watching to see if He would heal on the Sabbath, to get something to accuse Him of. And though Jesus knew their thoughts, He nonetheless tells the man with the withered hand: ‘Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood forth.’ (Luke 6:8) Now my brethren, you must admire Jesus’ for that; putting His belly and backbone into play, fully knowing the confusion His actions would cause. But knowing that He was in the right, He did what He had to do. Oh my fellow believers, how often do we stand up like Jesus for what is right eh, in spite of the opposition we know will come against us? I’m afraid I’ll have to say not too often, or rather not often enough, otherwise the church of Christ and His dictates wouldn’t be as maligned, unimportant and shunted aside as badly as it now is. Remember as followers of Christ we weren’t called to live an easy, problem free life, but to battle the evildoers and their actions, to be soldiers in this wicked, godless world. And soldiers only win battles when they stand strong in their convictions and fight with plenty belly and backbone for what they believe is right. And sadly my brethren, I believe that’s one area in which we’re falling down today. Christ’s followers have become soft and mamby pamby. We lead the good, relatively soft, easy life and don’t want to, or are afraid to put it in jeopardy by stirring up things, even when we see stuff happening that’s not right. Granted we all can’t be strong like Jesus, but if we’re truthful, we will all acknowledge that we can surely do better than we’re currently doing. So Friends, I’m asking us for the umpteenth time, if we really do LOVE Jesus and want to follow Him and make His church a worthwhile institution in this evil world, let’s pick up the slack in our Christian walk nuh. We need to be much better examples of His LOVE, mercy and forgiveness than we are. We need to bring the level of our actions up to the level of our talk, and even higher, because we can’t belabour people about Christ and His goodness when they are sick, hungry, naked and homeless. Remember Christianity is an action movement, and like Jesus we need to help the needy satisfy their physical wants and needs before we start preaching to them. You can see that’s how Jesus operated, and if we do likewise, we’ll certainly draw many more unbelievers to Him, which is one of our main purposes here on earth. And if some of us don’t want to hear that truth, then too bad yes! We’re no better than the hypocrite Pharisees! Sorry if I went off on a tangent there, but it aches my heart to see the way we supposed Christians, followers of Jesus Christ are behaving so spineless and afraid, so without true LOVE and compassion in a hurting world, where everybody’s looking, fearfully searching for something to hold on to, a something that can only be found in Jesus, a something that we have but are not sharing the way we should. Please Friends, let’s be serious about our bounden duty here on earth and fearlessly do it nuh, with the ever-faithful promises of Jesus and His certain assurance that we have to stand strong on. Only then can we consider ourselves true Christians, true followers of Jesus. Much LOVE!…to simply talk about Jesus…and not do the necessary actions…called for by that talk…is pure hypocrisy…

GARBAGE DUMPED ON ROADSIDES!

My little son taught me a lesson which I will remember all my life. We were coming back home after some shopping and it was a hot and humid day. As we were quite exhausted, I bought chips and juices for our drive back. After sipping the juice thirstily and finishing my chips, I was about to throw away the empty packets on the road when my son’s voice startled me, “Mama, roads are not dustbins!”

Surprised I turned around to see him neatly folding his wrappers and placing them in the empty shopper. With a somewhat amused smile, I asked him, “Who told you so, son?” Without a blink of an eye he said confidently, “Our teacher told us in the class yesterday that we should not throw anything on the roads. It is the duty of every citizen to keep our city clean.”

I felt ashamed of myself! All my life I had committed this crime without even considering it unethical. Every unwanted thing during a drive which should have been saved for the dustbin, was thoughtlessly tossed out of the car’s window. And then I had the cheek to complain about the dirty conditions of our roads, curse the sweepers for not doing their job properly and blame the concerned high ups for not taking strict steps to ensure that the city was kept spotlessly clean!

Karachi is considered a city of colours, from its multi-ethnic population, the variety in the dresses of its people, the food they eat, or the highly decorated public buses they travel in, but some of the colours are added by the garbage strewn along the roads, alleys, parks and other public places. It isn’t an uncommon sight to see heaps of cloth strips outside a tailor’s shop, leftover food dumped besides roadside eateries, vendors of fruits and vegetables throwing away their rotten produce, wrappings and empty boxes outside their shops.

All of us take great pains to keep our homes clean, spending a good part of our time daily to keep them spic and span. But how many of us realise that keeping our streets, alleys and public places clean is also our responsibility? Roadsides are littered with fruit peels, empty cans of juices, pet bottles of cold drinks and mineral water, discarded packs of cigarettes, match boxes, wrappers of chips, biscuits, ice-cream, pan and sweet supari, etc.

Polythene bags blow about lazily in the breeze or worse still, get stuck in the bushes, trees and barbed wires, depicting an ugly sight. They make storm water drains choke and overflow whenever there is rain. Still we do not even have a second thought before throwing out our garbage on the roads. These ugly dumps not only emit an ugly odour, they also become a favourable breeding place for flies and mosquitoes, giving rise to many infectious diseases.

As a nation we lack civic sense. We seldom take responsibility for any collective or productive act which could provide for better living conditions. We are content to play the blame game, sit back and criticise the government for all our woes. We hold the municipal authorities solely responsible for keeping our roads and public places clean, without realising that each and everyone has to play his role.

The city government has taken many steps to beautify Karachi and the result can be seen in nearly every part of the city. But the greenery, the impressive flyovers and underpasses can only please the eye if they are litter and graffiti-free.

It is high time we understood and learnt to play a positive role in keeping our cities clean. On self-help basis, we can take the initiative by forming neighbourhood committees that see to the sanitary conditions of their locality and make sure that no one throws his garbage outside his house.

We must learn to use dustbins provided in public places for unwanted things and teach others to do so too, because clean roads make clean cities and clean cities provide citizens with a healthy and pollution free environment. Like in the developed countries, the government can declare littering a crime and carry out on-the-spot checking; fines can be imposed on those who violate the law. We can follow the example of Singapore, one of the cleanest cities in the world, where heavy fines are imposed on throwing anything on the roads.

The lessons learnt during childhood last for a long time and children are good learners and teachers too. So parents and teachers can play an important role in inculcating in them a sense of responsibility at a very early stage. Their civic sense can go a long way towards changing the attitude of society as a whole. I hope many children (like my son) will teach their careless parents (like me) a lifelong lesson. Thank you, my dear son!