I hate mornings because I see people going for work, women in particular and I hate evenings because I see them coming back, but I love nights because they keep me awake to think, to grieve, to lament, to resolve. My name is Unemployed, the meaning of my name is ‘without a job although able to work’. There are many like me, wait, scores like me with almost same physical strength and mental conditions. We are famous especially in small talks, family gatherings, in private and most of all in media as our presence breathes life into their stories. Recently there was a news about us in the paper that our number has crossed more than half a million. I don’t believe in Government records, they think it might sadden us. Of course we are happy, we are growing, union is strength. So what if an infectious community impelled to the degradation of living hell. On the streets, shop fronts, corner shops, unpaid gardens and in most of the interviews and exams we appear. Our parents and siblings are the reason that keeps us on the respectable, or non-criminal, side of the society. 
Coming to our portfolio, we are proud owners of rejections, disappointments, depression, stack of curriculum vitae’s, useless hopes and impossible dreams, degrees, diplomas and what not.  ‘Doing nothing’ has become a routine in our life not because we are not able to do because we are not accepted. By slow degrees the feelings of disgust and shame of not earning rise into the bitterness of hatred and anger, unimaginable. Who is our enemy? Who doesn’t want our dreams to come true? Who is after our peace? Who gives our parents hard time? Who gives us titles like insomniac, amnesiac, druggies, depressives? Are the question we normally discuss in our meetings, although I am an ordinary member but our think tanks always blame the favoritism, cronyism, nepotism, elitism and many isms, they say we are deluged with them. Incompetents judge intellectuals on the mere excuse of experience, how would we be experienced when we do not work? Or I wonder every experienced is born experienced or should we admire ‘R.W.Emerson’s’ words “Experience is not what happens to a man, it is what a man does with what happens to him”. It’s enough to deter and prick conscience of those who see from the glasses of their executive cars youth walking like hitchhikers carrying folders with degrees and hearts with insufferable woes. We do it not for the physical fitness or just what the doctor ordered but to save four rupees which otherwise is enough money to travel the distance of five kms in a local bus. Beneath the pressure of torments such as these the feeble remnants of the courage, determination and hopes succumb. Ill thoughts become inmates, hatred of all things and of all mankind take control of us. Sometimes from the sudden outburst of our fury either the parents or the romantic partners are the usual and most patient of the sufferers, of course uncomplaining. Our troubles will never be over, our miseries will never end. The people we confront on daily basis are wicked in spite of their religious observances. They are too cruel to understand humility, too blind to see our aspiring hearts and tear-stained faces, unsure of their conduct towards us is perfectly unrighteous. They feel safe in this wonderful self-complacency without a single pang of conscience for their cruelty towards us and always fool themselves by considering their heartlessness as a proof of their piety, virtue and kindness. The irony is that these are the people who make the important pilgrimages, will always be seen neatly sitting in the front rows in the mosques, will be leading negotiators in the matters related to marriages, divorces, business and property settlements, scandalous this year, head of the department next year. Our enemies have proven to be too strong and too many, we cannot fight tyranny with dreams, influence with hopes and money with miseries. We are fed up with these sleazebags and backhanders, we have given up before this plug ugly, corrupted system and people who shamelessly on the pretext of poverty and opportunity, greed and dishonesty, believe that if they will be caught they will be exonerated. We are the pain and we know the pain, inexorable indeed. Although we have vowed to die fighting to the last but this oppression is grinding us down, our resistance is diminishing, our prayers are unanswered, and our responsibilities are growing. So is growing our fear.  

The author can reached at ishi.sai@gmail.com

Lastupdate on : Sun, 29 Apr 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 29 Apr 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:00:00 IST