I am a Pashtun....

I am a Pashtun, miserable Pashtun!
Stands alone with miserable present, troublesome past and dim future!
And I have my family tree that goes for thousands years and tell you thousands stories!
And I have a land to live, but not for me to live...
And I have eyes that see and cry....
And I have a family that I love, like you love yours....

And I have an ego that rules over me,
And cheap pride that I prefer over your kingdoms...
And I have an empty stomach,
That I prefer over yours empty desires and greed...
And I have a heart which beats within my chest...
For every time it beats it asks for love and peace....

And......
I am a bird, but not a free bird.....
And I want to fly....like you want to fly
And this road that you stand on is mine....
And my forefathers fought for it.....
Like you fought with courage for your empire!!!!!!
And those mountains which you see, reflects me...
And that tree that you see shows my strength.....

Ask Greeks and Aryans, Huns and English, Arabs and Mughals!!!!!!
For we rule to love, like roots of the tree rule to expand...
And we fight to win, like you play to win!!!!!!!
And you call it play and we call it war.......
You call it playground, we call it battlefield.....

And I am a river....
And I will take you with my flow...
And I will give you water, water of love and peace, of Pashtunwali and honour
You may cut my throat not my roots?
For I have heard from my parents,
And the words echo in my ears.....
And men do not die with the death of their bodies...

(Farid Gul, 31th January, 2009)

A free verse that I want to dedicate to Zakir Lala, Sajid , Afzal and all those comrades (Amjad, Abasin,Zia,salahudin,Masam, Akbar, Maseed , Gul , Jacq , Fauji , sasha and many more ) who see what others don’t - a light of hope, a light of change.