Broken Voices
By Jehanzeb Noor
MIT S.B. 2004 and S.M. 2007 Research Assistant
Ford-MIT Alliance
Center for Innovation in Product Development
jg_noor@mit.edu
I first left home when I was selected
to represent my country, Pakistan, at an international
high school in the USA with students from eighty
counties. I was fifteen years old. Ever since,
I have studied and worked abroad in different
countries and now I am a graduate student at MIT.
All these years, I have tried to be a reflection
of where I come from and what my country stands
for. I have talked about my country often and
how there is still hope for it. But these days
I just stay quiet. It is because I have a broken
voice.
After the recent earthquake in Pakistan, I do
not even know how different it would feel to lose
my own mother. It would probably be the same numbness,
the same denial of pain and the same red eyes
ready to spill at any moment but forced to hold
back. Today, I am left feeling lucky not because
my Motherland chose to bless me with abundant
opportunities out of a family of limited resources.
Instead I feel fortunate now just to have the
basics that you and I take for granted - food
and shelter, clothes and water. I could have been
among the already 80,000 who will not see another
day, or among the 100,000 who will cease to live
very soon without proper medical attention.
Many countries have pledged to help out Pakistan
in the most generous ways possible. Major international
alliances or agencies are also participating in
the relief and rehabilitation efforts. I am thankful
to the international community.
And I am even more touched by the compassion of
those in the MIT community who have shared this
grief and burden. They have donated and prayed.
When one hurts, we all do. That is what still
sustains our hope in humanity.
But then every few days, I talk to my mother Naila,
a schoolteacher in Pakistan. Hers is a broken
voice too. More broken than mine. I find out things
from her that I cannot find in the news media.
Although she still goes to work every day, there
is not much teaching going on. The kids in her
classes, one after another, bring their toys and
clothes to school instead of their textbooks,
hoping these will somehow reach tens of thousands
of children who have lost all they had and might
also lose their lives soon. Perhaps many days
ago, these kids saw the same picture that I just
looked at recently. The picture shows two little
girls, no more than eight years old, standing
alone, holding incense at the side of several
graves, and trying to understand what death means.
I wish their parents could still hear the broken
voices of these girls, and find some peace through
those voices. The teachers continue to collect
donations, but means to send them off to the Northern
Areas of Pakistan are very limited. Even more
scarce is food and water, medicines and warm clothes.
International relief organizations estimate that
aid has still not reached at least half a million
of the three million people left without shelter
due to the earthquake. Because of the lack of
proper medicines for colds and tetanus, and scarcity
of food and water, at least 10,000 children will
die very soon. I wish that some of you had had
the chance to visit this devastated area before
the earth turned upside down. You would have found
it beautiful and untouched. And I wish you had
seen the cute little kids with green eyes and
tan skin, dressed in traditional clothes. They
would be playing in lush green fields as we speak.
Northern Pakistan was not modern at all, but it
was self-sufficient in most ways possible, and
was a cultural entity of its own. Sadly, all our
world knew about this region was its face of conflict,
refugees and fugitives pouring in from neighboring
countries. Now I hope our world also finds out
that the same region is facing the worst natural
catastrophe of recent times, exceeding the aftermaths
of the Tsunami - the needs for which were met
within 10 days of the disaster.
As I struggle to use this broken voice of a grieving
son I will try to share with you, the voice that
is most broken of us all. It is that of Ghulam.
She had a poor but bustling family - both her
son and daughter were married with several children.
Then one day, in a matter of no more than few
minutes, their simple life was taken away from
all of them, except Ghulam, now all alone at 79
years of age. She recalls, “I used to make
fun of my family for getting cold so easily in
the winters. I used to tell them how tough we
were in the good old days.” A few days ago,
Ghulam stood in a queue for winter tents. She
was so physically weak that she felt her bones
were going to break. Before she could make it
to the front, the relief workers ran out of tents.
There have not been any new tent shipments to
this small village. Ghulam is bracing for a tough
winter of snow and rain without any warm clothes
or any shelter.
Just in the recent past when the Tsunami and Katrina
struck, I made small contributions online and
thought they could help. Now, when a disaster
of larger scale has struck again, I am prepared
to do all I can, but that just is not enough.
Perhaps if the parliamentarians, senators and
congressmen abroad were contacted by their constituents
to use their influence and send more airlift equipment,
help would reach more people like Ghulam in remote
corners. Perhaps if every American, and every
other citizen of the world who could afford it,
could contribute just $1 each, the $312 million
funding appeal for aid could be fulfilled. Perhaps
if each of us talked to or contacted our friends
and family and asked them to contribute and spread
the word, we would build a network of hope and
bridge a huge gap between needs and resources.
In the words of Ghulam, “I used to be tougher
than most but this winter is different. I actually
do not know if I would be able to make it all
the way to the end. And I cannot really stand
in a tent queue again. May be some one will bring
me a tent.”
Hers is another Broken Voice, most broken of us
all.
These Broken Voices are crying for your help.
Although their hopes grow dimmer with every passing
hour, they have faith the world will care. I do
not know what exactly to ask of you, or how much
to ask. Just one word comes to mind - help. And
when you reflect or pray, please think of these
Broken Voices. Winter has already arrived. These
Broken Voices have nothing to find hope in this
hopelessness. They might not have a tomorrow,
all they have is now. And these Broken Voices
have no one else to ask for help; all they have
is you.
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