About a week back, i was excited. The Shanaakht festival was back in Karachi, and even though i couldn’t attend, i was excited nonetheless.

The reason for that is simple, it’s because what Shanaakht stands for.

For years, i’ve been lamenting the fact, and telling any person who will listen, that we need to celebrate our own heritage first. Our own history, our own success stories and our own accomplishments especially when done on our own soil.

It started off after i realized that no one had anything good to say about Pakistan. The government was corrupt, the army was corrupt, the utilities, banks, public sector, private sector all didn’t perform and as a nation we were nothing but screwed.

For some reason, i didn’t want to believe that. Maybe it was because i opened my eyes in an era where i saw public services doing something. Building infrastructure, being operational and actually solving (some) problems. Granted, they sometimes made even bigger problems than they solved, but atleast they were doing something. I saw an economy which was going up, i saw jobs being created, i saw salaries raising, and i saw opportunities wherever i turned.

I also saw myself as a citizen of this nation, joined to it by birth. I worked, i innovated, and i created. If i could do it, sitting here in Pakistan, why couldn’t the “nation”. I also saw people around me achieving heights others said couldn’t be achieved while being here. I saw people applying idea’s, being creative and lifting themselves from one strata of society to another based on their hard (and often smart) work all within the span of a decade.

I started off in a company that was 2 people in all, and i (made) saw it grow into a national operation, and now playing in the big leagues, taking business away from multinational giants.

I saw an era, where sitting in Mingora, one could purchase an airline ticket, have it paid for in Islamabad and picked up in Karachi, all within the span of an hour, and i saw a banking system where we could deposit 5 checks from five different cities in Islamabad and have it credited in Karachi, all within 2 days.

To me, that is what my shanaakht was. A citizen of a new and emerging Pakistan.

And then the festival was destroyed, by people who couldn’t “control their grief”. The same people who wreaked havoc and plundered the country, causing untold losses of billions in the name of grief, before occupying the throne and looting it again. And i couldn’t help but notice the irony.

I’ve been told this time and time again, and even though i still dont want to believe it i can’t help but nod my head just a little now at it…

“what happened at Shanaakht, sadly, IS our shanaakht.”

God help us.