Skip to main content

Malala – daring to dream


With the American first family - Exactly a year ago 
Malala Yousafzai is a symbol of human aspirations.  What did she want apart from the simple things of life?  Nothing.  She wanted education, freedom to live her life as she would choose, and the space to dream.  Why didn’t people give her that? 

When she was shot point-blank as she was returning home from school, it was the innocence and aspirations of childhood that was assaulted.  Malala was just 15 years old when she became the target of religious fundamentalists.  She was a child.  Why would a child be a threat to any religion?  What kind of a religion is it that permits the murder of innocent children?  The masked Taliban gunman who attacked Malala asked, “"Which one of you is Malala? Speak up, otherwise I will shoot you all."  His religious fervour was such that he could kill a whole lot of innocent school children.  No normal human being can understand the relevance or meaning of such a religion.

“I had a terrible dream yesterday with military helicopters and the Taleban. I have had such dreams since the launch of the military operation in Swat. My mother made me breakfast and I went off to school. I was afraid of going to school because the Taleban had issued an edict banning all girls from attending schools.”  Malala wrote that in her BBC blog on 3 Jan 2009, three years before she was attacked by the Taliban. 


A girl who wishes to study, a child who wants to have dreams and not nightmares – that was Malala.  That is Malala.  She is a symbol of the dreams of every child.  The Nobel Prize Committee has done the right thing to honour her with the award.  It has drawn the attention of the world to a serious issue: the child’s right to dream.  
Labels:

Comments

  1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 13, 2014 at 9:29 AM

    And that too a little girl. She started writing as a little girl, I mean. Even 17 is not much of an age given her status now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Devesh PrajapatiOctober 13, 2014 at 4:46 PM

    Very true sir, She is a true inspiration to girls and she showed her women power or dedication towards studies.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 13, 2014 at 9:31 PM

      She has become a mascot for the West against a certain kind of religion. But I'm not worried about the politics behind it.

      Delete
  3. Ankita October 13, 2014 at 8:10 PM

    yes, but still,I do not think she deserves a Noble prize. There are many unsung heroes who do rather this girl who has recv more applauds than she actually deserves.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 13, 2014 at 9:35 PM

      "Full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air," as Thomas Grey sang. We had never heard of Kailash Satyarti until the Nobel committee discovered him. Malala is a young girl whose spirit (mettle) deserves recognition.

      Malala's case is not just about a blog or what she writes. It is about a whole lot of people suppressed and oppressed in the name of religion. The Prize draws the world's attention to that problem. That's important.

      Delete
  4. UnknownOctober 14, 2014 at 11:37 AM

    Talking about dream. It did remind me of my dream yesterday. I was reading khaled hosseini's novel "A Thousand Splendid Suns" and didn't realise when I slept and ended up dreaming. It was scary. With all the Taliban attacks happening all over, I was scared to death. It wasn't less than a nightmare. It took me 15 minutes to get back to the reality of life. A dream left such an impact on me, imagine kids facing that everyday. They never ask for much. All they need is a place to learn and a place to play. Education is the right of every child. Malala is sure a symbol of dreams of every child.
    Nice read :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 14, 2014 at 4:55 PM

      Life in all the Muslim countries where Taliban and the like (IS, for example) are active is a nightmare. 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' shows one part of the picture. The actual picture is much worse. Hence the greater relevance of dreams. The greater need to probe into what the militant and fundamentalist organisations are doing. Malala's service is of much value in this regard.

      Delete
  5. UnknownOctober 15, 2014 at 1:07 PM

    True example and inspiration for woman power!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Randeep the melody

Many people in this pic have made their presence in this A2Z series A phone call came from an unknown number the other day. “Is it okay to talk to you now, Sir?” The caller asked. The typical start of a conversation by an influencer. “What’s it about?” My usual response looking forward to something like: “I am so-and-so from such-and-such business firm…” And I would cut the call. But there was a surprise this time. “I am Randeep…” I recognised him instantly. His voice rang like a gentle music in my heart. Randeep was a student from the last class 12 batch of Sawan. One of my favourites. He is unforgettable. Both Maggie and I taught him at Sawan where he was a student from class 4 to 12. Nine years in a residential school create deep bonds between people, even between staff and students. Randeep was an ideal student. Good at everything yet very humble and spontaneous. He was a top sportsman and a prefect with eminent leadership. He had certain peculiar problems with academics. Ans
25 comments
Read more

Queen of Religion

She looked like Queen Victoria in the latter’s youth but with a snow-white head. She was slim, fair and graceful. She always smiled but the smile had no life. Someone on the campus described it as a “plastic smile.” She was charming by physical appearance. Soon all of us on the Sawan school campus would realise how deceptive appearances were. Queen took over the administration of Sawan school on behalf of her religious cult RSSB [Radha Soami Satsang Beas]. A lot was said about RSSB in the previous post. Its godman Gurinder Singh Dhillon is now 70 years old. I don’t know whether age has mellowed his lust for land and wealth. Even at the age of 64, he was embroiled in a financial scam that led to the fall of two colossal business enterprises, Fortis Healthcare and Religare finance. That was just a couple of years after he had succeeded in making Sawan school vanish without a trace from Delhi which he did for the sake of adding the school’s twenty-odd acres of land to his existing hun
19 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
37 comments
Read more

Pranita a perverted genius

Bulldozer begins its work at Sawan Pranita was a perverted genius. She had Machiavelli’s brain, Octavian’s relentlessness, and Levin’s intellectual calibre. She could have worked wonders if she wanted. She could have created a beautiful world around her. She had the potential. Yet she chose to be a ruthless exterminator. She came to Sawan Public School just to kill it. A religious cult called Radha Soami Satsang Beas [RSSB] had taken over the school from its owner who had never visited the school for over 20 years. This owner, a prominent entrepreneur with a gargantuan ego, had come to the conclusion that the morality of the school’s staff was deviating from the wavelengths determined by him. Moreover, his one foot was inching towards the grave. I was also told that there were some domestic noises which were grating against his patriarchal sensibilities. One holy solution for all these was to hand over the school and its enormous campus (nearly 20 acres of land on the outskirts
13 comments
Read more

Sanjay and other loyalists

AI-generated illustration Some people, especially those in politics, behave as if they are too great to have any contact with the ordinary folk. And they can get on with whoever comes to power on top irrespective of their ideologies and principles. Sanjay was one such person. He occupied some high places in Sawan school [see previous posts, especially P and Q ] merely because he knew how to play his cards more dexterously than ordinary politicians. Whoever came as principal, Sanjay would be there in the elite circle. He seemed to hold most people in contempt. His respect was reserved for the gentry. I belonged to the margins of Sawan society, in Sanjay’s assessment. So we hardly talked to each other. Looking back, I find it quite ludicrous to realise that Sanjay and I lived on the same campus 24x7 for a decade and a half without ever talking to each other except for official purposes.      Towards the end of our coexistence, Sawan had become a veritable hell. Power supply to the
12 comments
Read more