Trapped in the Shallow End of the Dream Pool

It is a languid Sunday morning. I slept late last night. Lately I have been sleeping for as long as I want until Razia has no choice but to either throw me off the bed or complain to mama, “Baji, ye dekhein Hira bajii bed nahi chhor rheen” I reluctantly get off the bed and slump into the sofa, telling Razia to switch the TV on, as sternly as I can manage in my half-dead voice. The background score of a news channel blaring from the TV as I struggle to make sense of my surroundings finally wakes me up. The host with too-much make-up and too-glossy-hair makes a valiant attempt at sounding compassionate when she declares in a grave voice ‘Gaza per aik aur hamla, Sadar, Wazzeer-e-azam ne waqye ki muzamat ker di’.

I can’t help but think what this Sunday morning must be like for a girl about the same age as mine in war-stricken Gaza. Surely, whether the geyser is on or not  won’t be her biggest worry? As she looks around herself, a thousand things cross her mind at once, all equally urgent, all equally grave. Where do I go to get my little sister a bite to eat? How do I get my brother’s wound dressed? What must I tell my mother about my missing father? How do I make the sound of falling bombs less dreadful for my sister and pass them off as fireworks? Where is help when you need it? Why us? What do I do? What do I do first?

To us it is Israel, to her and everybody else in Gaza; it is the place where the bombs come from. To us, it is a chance for people like me to take to social media to vent; to them, it is neither about ”Is sab k peechey Amreeka hai”, nor even about boycotting a can of Pepsi only to watch the Israeli stocks crash. To them, it is about whether or not they will get to see the light of another day, to them, it is the constant ominous dread of another bomb hitting their grounds and exploding in their faces. Bombs that batter, bombs that show no mercy, bombs that do not discriminate. Bombs that kill. Do they ever get used to the sights and sounds?

What would the girl in war-stricken Gaza care about Obama’s hypocritical statements condemning air strikes or about Israel’s motives? Why should she care anyway? Why should she lose loved ones over something she probably knows nothing about and had nothing to do with? Surely, their exposure to bombs and fires is not limited to the movies? For better or for worse, Gaza is at the shallow end of the dream pool. To them it is not about CGI perfection and fire stunts and explosions and the end of the world as we see it in movies. To them, it is all real. They are fighting, resisting, surviving, dying every moment, facing the bombs falling from the sky. For them, this is where their story begins and ends. I have this eerie feeling that World Moratorium is far away.

Wishing, hoping, for things to get better, I wonder why someone would have to die to prove love for their country. Why wouldn’t someone think twice before mixing rubble with blood? What are the payoffs of dying, if any? Why should patriotism come at such a dear price? What is the end to human greed? Does it know no bounds? I want to heal, we all do. But, where to start?

If 9/11 deserves a moment of Silence, Gaza deserves for us to never speak again.

Hoping against hope… Is it really not all that I, or anyone, can do?