Music: 'admiration or veneration'

Music gives us life and melody brings soul to it. Melody is everywhere, in the drizzling drops or the rustling autumn leaves, in the honking cars and in the heartbeat of each and every human. Music is the only medicine which takes humans into a trance like state. A state in which all one can see is the pictorial illustration of the lyrics and all one can feel is the rhythm with the thumping beat.

No wonder, music has become an essential to loosen ourselves from the daunting and hectic lives of today… and this ‘urge for music’ has given rise and power to the singers of today. Internationally ruling the charts and hearts of people, these top celebrities in fact have the strength to make or break a notion!

Songs, give birth to notions and every celebrity rises with a humongous fan following of his own ‘style’. The fandom these days reaches the pinnacle where people literally worship the star. These celebrities inspire and instigate the youth with their lavish lifestyles, provoking thoughts and exciting messages. Their thoughts, messages either open or subliminal are accepted since the youth is too naïve to object. Further elaborating naïve, these ‘devotees’ actually start living in the trance which the music and celebrity creates. Neither understanding the meaning nor the true significance, they just follow, proving the extremity of their ‘fanship’.

Now, focusing on the youth of Pakistan, where do we lie in this queue of this blind veneration?

We lie at the top!.. Totally intimidated by the celebrity power our youth has actually lost the power to understand before adoring. With complete adulation, our youngsters vouch to completely follow the footsteps of the foreigners. Each and everyone of us has a crush on one of those hot stars and we tap to their music. Rock, pop, R&B, soul, country, jazz etc. you just name it and even children will name the top most stars of these genres. But do we understand that how strong the impact of this unsighted devotion has been on our minds? Do we get the meaning of the song before putting it up as a status of facebook? Do we actually reckon the disrespect when we try to be as minimally dressed as Rihanna was in her video?

No! we don’t and infact we don’t pay a damn to such useless thoughts. Life is here and life is today! This is what we believe, but is this what our norms, values and religion has taught us? Our religion has treated this world only as an exam to pass for the world hereafter. Imagine an exam where we all know the answers taught us by the Almighty Allah, but still only a few etch the write steps to clear it. This is what we all do, we all know the answers but we seldom ponder because we have been brainwashed by the messages taught and conveyed to us by these celebrities.

Let’s, take a look at our lives now. Every girl wants to be ‘Material Girl’ and every boy wanders saying ‘It’s my life’. Awe struck by the ‘Good girl gone bad’ trauma we all want to be bad. We put black nail polishes and cat woman outfits to just copy the bad attitude and style. Every teenager sings ‘toxic’ and ‘piece of me’, without realizing that this is not what we were meant to be as Muslims and as Pakistanis. Listening to songs like ‘seduction’, ‘pump it’, shut up and drive’..we have transformed from the great humans to useless commodities which might appeal but seldom inspire.

We all want to be rockers, studs, hunks, hotties but do we ever desire to be the best person? Have we ever thought about those who gave birth to us?..No! When we don’t even think about the Almighty who created the world then why would we care about our parents? We say life is too short to be unhappy, so let’s have fun. But do we realize that life is also too short to make the Lord happy, so let’s start from today. Our minds have been jumbled and our focus has been busted. Our attention is only diverted to the present and we have forgotten about the judgment day. Thinking all day long about money, fame and fortune we rarely think about the values, norms and morals. With boys doing their maximum to cheat, disobey and be wild, do they actually become the shoulder of their old parents? And girls fishing for the attraction from the opposite sex… do we in fact gain respect and reverence anymore from the society? Our nation built and rendered as the representative of Islam..Will it survive the map with this level of indecency?

This article could go on for pages and pages, but bringing it to an end, the only thing I’d like to point out is that it’s high time to start thinking before we lose it all as a nation!