Stories, too short (Part: 1)

2
Looking to pictures of locked doors I filled in grieves and come to an economist and asked him, “Why people are losing their homes? Is it the result of currency crunch?”
He smiled and replied, “No! It is not the currency crunch as government is pouring billions of dollars in financial and other corporate but it is crunch of trust”
His answer looked logical to me and I ask him again, “Can you explain the crunch of trust to me, please?”
He smiled again and starts explaining in detail, “Banks are warehouses of wealth of people. It is the trust of people that they are depositing their wealth in bank. Banks are using trust of people and providing loans based on these wealth that are asset of people by showing it as their own wealth. The greed on interests of loans as well as competing to each other for interests, banks are providing loan that exceeds assets that people have deposited. As they fail to fulfill their obligation to real wealth of people and people start losing confidence to banks and pull out their money.”
I was in shock for a while, listening about bank and asked, “Then why governments are not taking action to protect people?”
He looked strangely into my eyes and replied, “It means you really don’t know anything?”
I just nodded my head in his favor, without saying anything.
“Governments themselves are earning money out of it and people have no way to other than to trust on government and banks. People make some confused reactions and then again start trusting on banks and governments. The analysts then start saying, it is a natural cycle of panics. They have to repeat every twenty to thirty years. Have you not heard of previous panics and depressions?”

3

It was almost noon. As I entered the shop, there were few shopkeepers taking their lunch. They were eating bread with water. There was nothing else. It really hurt me. We found nothing of interest in that shop and headed to another shop. They were also on their lunch but I amazed as looked at their lunch. They were eating very large pieces of meat covered with thick fat. As we came out of shop, I asked my father who was more familiar with Afghans. “I really can’t understand of what I saw. In one shop Afghans were eating bread and water and in another they were eating too much meat and fat?”
My father smiled, “I can understand what you want to say. They are not poor as their main trade is smuggling. It is their tradition that they save their money by cutting costs of their livelihood. As you saw they live for long times on water and bread and then when their bodies become in demand of energy they eat too much meat and fat at one time.”
“They are behaving like lion and other meat eating animals that after eating a prey wait for a week or longer for another prey? Crocodile even can wait for longer times?” I asked.
“Yes! It will take time to learn that money is not precious than human lives……..” My father told me and I understood a lot by this short sentence that was explaining a long history.

4

I always believed that democracy means tolerance but how much tolerance? It was not clear for me. I was always asking people about limits of tolerance but there were no satisfactory answers. Then there were a famous clip of a news report on electronic media in which Muntazir al Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist tried to hit the president Bush with his shoes. Mrs. Bush called it democracy in Iraq. It really expanded my vision and understanding about democracy. Now I can understand that in democracy we should tolerate the shoes also but still I am puzzled that if someone try to shoot me, should I tolerate his bullets or not?”

5

I was trying to take a few photographs of deer that were grazing. Two women stopped near bar, where I was taking photographs. As women reached near me, one of her looking angrily to me and told loudly to the next woman that I could here, “I don’t believe that they also can appreciate animals”. I replied her uncontrollably, “Though you are not appreciable but I appreciate you”.

6

An M.Phil student asked me, “Why you are always talking about evolution while God has not created evolution?”
I amazed of his baseless judgment and asked him, “How do you know that God has not created evolution?”
“We are not able to explain it though science has advanced a lot since its popularity.” He replied.
“Can you explain black matters, time travel, and parallel universes?” I asked him.
“No!” He replied.
“If we can’t explain them then does it mean God hasn’t created them?”
He remained silent and without answer.
“There are many problems that we can’t explain” I told him.

7

“Is your political objective to govern on people?” asked from a politician.
“No! My objective is to serve people” He replied.
“But you only appear during elections?”
“Because it is time to reach people”
“You can serve people when in office and out of office”
“But I am not allowed to use public money when I am out of office.”

8

Luther King said, “I have a dream when people are not judged by color of their skin but to content of their character.”
At 20th January 2009 the US celebrated the Barrack Hussein Obama’s presidential inauguration and at 22nd January Larry King said at Larry King Live that, “My son Kennedy is eight years old and he says, he loves to be black”.

9

While visiting victims of killings, he distributed aid money to suffering family and then delivered a motivated speech to masses. On the way back to home one asked him, “It is becoming a trend that governments and political parties are compensating with handsome money the physical damages. Is it because people become more conscious to capabilities of their guardians on delivering their promises?”
“You are right but besides it is always true that money unites people and words motivate them. A motivated and united people prevail and a motivated but divided people collapse inside.”

10

He had a house on rent but most of his friends were taxi drivers. He came to his elder brother for an advice, “I can buy a taxi and have extra money if I sell my house. Beside I can earn two to three times more than I get out of house rent. It is wiser to have more money out of my investments”.
“This is a rule that if you have more than chance then you can take risk because in case of failure you have still chance to live on. You have only one chance and you are going to risk for a thing that you haven’t experience in it. It is wiser to not take risk in this case” his elder brother advised him.”
His friends laughed and taunting him coward. “Business means risk. If you are not going to take risk you will never succeed in life” his friends advised him.
He sold his house and bought a taxi. He were not earning as his friends because he was an inexperienced man. The taxi’s engine seized and extra money went for repairing. He sold the taxi on loss. Now he hadn’t a house nor could get another taxi. Hazaras call it, “One who buys by five and sell for four just for sake of people call him businessman.”