(or How a valley was destroyed)
For Amir Raza who also laments the sorry state into which this once beautiful valley, his---our---hometown, has now fallen.
For Amir Raza who also laments the sorry state into which this once beautiful valley, his---our---hometown, has now fallen.
"Where is the life we have lost in living?" T.S. Eliot
"If you don't know where you are, you don't know who you are." Wendell Berry
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Once there was a valley
A sinuous gorge, a nestled bowl
A bonny dimple of a hole
A weathered rocky dip, yet so grand
In the wrinkly face of the ancient land.
Girdled by the ageless hills
Of tall and mighty Chiltan
And big broody Zarghoon
Mysterious Murdar and
Takatu with its sickle moon
Like circling sacred rings
Or sublime guardian wings---
Majestic and firm, eternally profound---
That hugged the sleepy vale all around.
The fortress, the sanctuary
The bridal gift of the legendary
The little Paris and London
The picturesque fruit garden:
All beautiful and befitting
The valley prided many a name;
It was worthy of highest acclaim.
It was ravaged and razed, but it did survive
The calamitous quake of nineteen thirty-five
And then it was named the little Tin Town
It shone once more like a jewel in a crown.
Like the colorful fruit in its perennial orchards
The valley was home to a myriad of people
A garden of flowers each distinctly tinctured
And of temples, mosques and many a church steeple.
It was not that long ago
A generation, maybe two
When the young knew the old
And the old loved them too
When living meant limits, simplicity the cure
And wants were not needs, desires only few
When hearts were soft, minds open yet not unsure
And little was said, but everyone knew.
It was a time not long ago
A generation, maybe two
A place and time of sanity
Of neighborly care and frugality
A time devoid of apathy
Of callousness, or the new brutality
It was a time for all to see
When the distance to a “we"
From an “I” and a “you”
Was always straight and short, too:
A mere step, or maybe two.
And then the dark age arrived
Kali Yuga, or the iron age revived
I guess they call it “progress”
"Advancement" and “development”, or maybe taraqee
All hailed and proclaimed with an unprecedented glee.
First went the values, the virtues and the vision
Followed by the will to have a collective mission
Both the vision and the mission
Were abandoned, were surrendered
In criminal acts of omission and commission---
A pervert submission to the reign of quantity
To the ugly cult of matter at the cost of quality---
The new creed is to have as opposed to be
To be blind to everything we’re supposed to see.
Greed is now good and mediocrity rules
Bigotry is taught and learned in the schools
Living now means the sky is the limit
Simplicity a curse and desires unlimited
Hearts are as hard as aged rocks pure
Minds open no more, only violently sure
The chatter is deafening, the noise insane
Plenty is said and heard, but nothing's retained
The signs and the symbols fill the air all around
The malls, the movie halls with dolby all-surround.
The old we is gone--a faded, forgotten history
There is only I and only you--alienated, shaken, illusory
Lacking any charm, or any old-fashioned mystery.
The valley is no more
It’s a bleak badland like a canvas of gore
Like a failed student with a zero score
In all the subjects and much, much more.
Like an orphaned child or a victim of rapacity
Depravity has devoured its carrying capacity
A landscape was raped, its fabric plundered
Conscience escaped as morality blundered.
The valley is no more
Poison oozes from its pores
The bonny dimple, the nestled bowl
The rocky dip and the pretty hole in
The wrinkly face of the ancient land
Is a crowded, polluted, sorry wasteland.
A sinuous gorge, a nestled bowl
A bonny dimple of a hole
A weathered rocky dip, yet so grand
In the wrinkly face of the ancient land.
Girdled by the ageless hills
Of tall and mighty Chiltan
And big broody Zarghoon
Mysterious Murdar and
Takatu with its sickle moon
Like circling sacred rings
Or sublime guardian wings---
Majestic and firm, eternally profound---
That hugged the sleepy vale all around.
The fortress, the sanctuary
The bridal gift of the legendary
The little Paris and London
The picturesque fruit garden:
All beautiful and befitting
The valley prided many a name;
It was worthy of highest acclaim.
It was ravaged and razed, but it did survive
The calamitous quake of nineteen thirty-five
And then it was named the little Tin Town
It shone once more like a jewel in a crown.
Like the colorful fruit in its perennial orchards
The valley was home to a myriad of people
A garden of flowers each distinctly tinctured
And of temples, mosques and many a church steeple.
It was not that long ago
A generation, maybe two
When the young knew the old
And the old loved them too
When living meant limits, simplicity the cure
And wants were not needs, desires only few
When hearts were soft, minds open yet not unsure
And little was said, but everyone knew.
It was a time not long ago
A generation, maybe two
A place and time of sanity
Of neighborly care and frugality
A time devoid of apathy
Of callousness, or the new brutality
It was a time for all to see
When the distance to a “we"
From an “I” and a “you”
Was always straight and short, too:
A mere step, or maybe two.
And then the dark age arrived
Kali Yuga, or the iron age revived
I guess they call it “progress”
"Advancement" and “development”, or maybe taraqee
All hailed and proclaimed with an unprecedented glee.
First went the values, the virtues and the vision
Followed by the will to have a collective mission
Both the vision and the mission
Were abandoned, were surrendered
In criminal acts of omission and commission---
A pervert submission to the reign of quantity
To the ugly cult of matter at the cost of quality---
The new creed is to have as opposed to be
To be blind to everything we’re supposed to see.
Greed is now good and mediocrity rules
Bigotry is taught and learned in the schools
Living now means the sky is the limit
Simplicity a curse and desires unlimited
Hearts are as hard as aged rocks pure
Minds open no more, only violently sure
The chatter is deafening, the noise insane
Plenty is said and heard, but nothing's retained
The signs and the symbols fill the air all around
The malls, the movie halls with dolby all-surround.
The old we is gone--a faded, forgotten history
There is only I and only you--alienated, shaken, illusory
Lacking any charm, or any old-fashioned mystery.
The valley is no more
It’s a bleak badland like a canvas of gore
Like a failed student with a zero score
In all the subjects and much, much more.
Like an orphaned child or a victim of rapacity
Depravity has devoured its carrying capacity
A landscape was raped, its fabric plundered
Conscience escaped as morality blundered.
The valley is no more
Poison oozes from its pores
The bonny dimple, the nestled bowl
The rocky dip and the pretty hole in
The wrinkly face of the ancient land
Is a crowded, polluted, sorry wasteland.
------------
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Quetta O' Quetta !
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