Lost Identity By Ayesha Shahid
Uploaded by eddyslash on Mar 09, 2009
Lost Identity
By Ayesha Shahid
The roaring and the wailing of the wind awakened me suddenly from my ‘sweet dreams’. I looked out of my window and saw the trees in my backyard swinging violently. Almost immediately I saw two trees falling over the backyard. I ran to my bed, covered myself and prayed that the hurricane would stop and won’t cause much damage. Next morning, I dared to walk into the yard to see what Nature has done to my nature in the garden. I was grieved to see my plantation crashed to the ground. But there was something more than the grief: I noticed a tree on the ground with its huge root system exposed in the air. Then I marveled at another tree: Lightning had damaged one of its biggest branches but the tree itself stood intact; its deep root system held it firmly in place.
At this juncture I realized a subtle yet profound relation between man and nature. I learnt that people, like trees, need roots and a solid system of connections fastening them firmly to the ground. As I thought about it, I realized just how rootless and disturbed our lives have become in these chaotic and in many ways, dark times. The present time carries, with itself, a sense of rootless ness and disconnection. In our humdrum lives, time seems to move at a tremendous velocity and people in turn travel great distances to reach out time. The majority of people in this postmodern world seem to have no connection with their past, family, community and nation. They have become a kind of globetrotter concerned with the physical comforts and the present moments only.
The life in big cities, despite its industrial progress and physical comforts, is sordid and horrible where the identity of a human being is nothing but a ‘heap of broken images’ drowned in materialism. People have lost faith in the moral and spiritual values. It has become an exception rather than a rule to consider settling as a nation, to build deep roots and connections that will last a lifetime. As a result, in the times of crisis, these people come out hurt and wounded, sometimes homeless and alone.
In the past 59 years, our culture has undergone a tremendous transformation. Our country is undergoing an identity crisis, a crisis that arises from cultural conflict. One of...