My First Letter to Sanjana Zehra

Dear Sanjana Madam!

… ‘Madam’ because even I feel like a child in front of you!

Before anything, I would like to formally welcome you into this world. I wish you a long healthy life and pray that your stay here is adventurous, enjoyable, and one that covers a variety of experiences – fun, play, games, battles … hope you do it all!

I guess you won’t get to read this letter for quite some time, and maybe understand it much later; and when you do, you might wonder, ‘Why did Hamza make this letter public?’ … in all probability you won’t (wonder), but eventually you will understand the many reasons why … as I look forward to the history you and I will share

First let me tell you that you came as a good luck charm; at least for me you did … and quite certainly for Ali Noor as well.

As far as Mandana is concerned, I think she is your lucky charm – hold on to her and you will find what you seek the most!

I also think that, by the time you’re an adult, you will consider us (at this point in time) to be a bunch of irrational, over-emotional, individuals, who were reluctant and unwilling to recognize ‘luck’ as a logical process itself! … Little will you understand or accept the context of our existence …

Next I will impress upon you that you have robbed me, as Rashida Khala puts it, of my ‘babyhood’! Because, before you, the title of ‘youngest’ (in our unit, as it exists on this day) was held by me … quite trivial, yet something that might affect the nature of our relationship.
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On a less personal note, I really didn’t know that your coming would alter the entire concept of life I had about and around myself! Let me, once again, give you a context here:

You’re born in a place where identities are losing strength – a nation whose sovereignty is on the verge of going bust, and amongst people who just don’t seem to get together for the right reasons.

You’re born in a time when Humanity is experiencing a new sense of freedom – a few days back one of the citizens of an occupied territory got away (with his life) after throwing his shoes (considered the height of insult in his own culture) at the ruler of the occupying country. Even more so, this fellow has become a global hero of sorts!
When you will read your history you will realize that such an act would lead straight to public execution had we belonged to any prior time.

But, as I keep repeating myself, for you, these are only trivialities which our generation prefers to blow out of proportion, in some cases, because we benefit from doing so, and in others, because we get an entertaining respite in dealing with the mess we are getting into with each passing day.
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I also took out an astral chart of your birth and shared it with the whole world. You are almost a cusp, between Capricorn and Sagittarius: serious minded, energetic, extremely ambitious and highly result oriented. I have been looking at many configurations over the last few years, and I must say that yours has been one of the most uniform and ordered astral configurations I have ever seen. I feel jealous first, but then I am humbled, especially when I get an insight into the course, the potential and the objectives nature has laid-out for your generation as a whole.

While we, the generations of the 20th century (and earlier) have been dreaming of a new world, yours will be creating it! While we had been struggling to figure out a new knowledge, a new mind and its associated ideas, you will be using them with ease to live a new and much more ‘efficient’ (as you might define it) lifestyle.

Much more humbling is my personal realization that how small and insignificant one lifetime is in the bigger process of nature. As I live today, the entire center of my attention tends to revolve around my own life, my own dreams, and those of a few others I am so closely attached to. But then, if I get outside of all this and take an overview, which your birth compels me to do, I see how many people live in exactly the same way.

Take your own birth as an example:

When they took you to the nursery, right after birth, there were 5 other newborns, each with a family of their own – a set of individuals who were celebrating and cherishing the joy just like me and my dear ones. This was further verified as we walked out of the nursery and saw another baby coming in, followed by a woman (probably her mother’s sister) with tears in her eyes, and happiness all across her face…

And then if I focus just on my life alone, my goals, my objectives, my likes, my passions etc., for the first time I felt that although they seem so grand and all encompassing for my existence, they will (eventually) lose their individuality like ether evaporating in thin air – at best it could be a perfume which spreads a momentary, pleasant smell in the unimaginably grand scheme of nature – all dimensions inclusive.

Much importantly though, I get a very strong sense that you as a generation will be far more comfortable with this idea; and unlike us, who get this realization only to forget about it when our everyday life calls us ‘back to reality’, you will utilize it and make it a real factor for your everyday doings … And if it not be true in your case then, I can confidently say, it will be so for your children … although I would still like to place my bets with you

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This brings me to my final realization. One that stems from a concern that so unexpectedly took over me. Unexpected for me because I never thought I would worry about bringing up a child – especially one that is not biologically my own!

Within an hour of your coming into this world, the only thing my mind could focus on was: ‘How does it go from here?’ ‘What am I supposed to do?’ ‘What am I to get out of all this?’

How does it go from here?

Apart from the usual taking care of your physical well being, making you comfortable, keeping you away from pain and sickness etc., which I would do as much as is necessary from my side, what about the other aspects of your upbringing? Teaching and educating you? Making you distinguish between right and wrong? Providing you with a framework of ethics and morality? Etc.?

It seems obvious that these are equally necessary things. And these are exactly the principles upon which society (at least the one that I was brought up in) brings up its children.

And then add to these every parent’s (and other elders’) personal dreams and agendas which they would love to see these children carry forward – a family business/profession is the most typical example…

And then, suddenly, Raza’s words also resonate in the head… he has always been telling us that the most important thing for an individual is freedom and independence. That it is necessary for one’s mental (emotional and intellectual) nourishment to be free; and I couldn’t agree less…

But then he also finds it quite inexplicable how individuals are robbed of their freedom and independence right from the day they are conceived!

To start with, no one comes into this world out of their own will. It’s the parent’s decision/choice/mistake that brings a child into this world. Secondly, as a child you are the most impressionable thing around. You are sensitive, ignorant, naïve – like a blank sheet waiting to be written upon. The things that happen around you, the sounds you hear, the words you end up recognizing, actions you observe, all of them are raw material for the formation of your personality. … And so, the person you end up becoming is hardly independent of whatever and whoever has been around you.

What am I supposed to do and what do I get out of it?

In context of the above, I get really tense! Because, as far as my involvement in your upbringing is concerned, every action I take, every idea I share with you, every communication I make, has an impact of what you will become.

It then becomes more of a work that I do upon myself than upon you. That is, to bring you up, I have to bring myself up!!

But to what end???

I would prefer that end to be freedom and independence – yours and mine both…

I have been sensing a problem in family-centric societies like ours: extreme cases where individuals closely associated with the kids (their parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts etc.) have a bunch of ideas, actions and moralities they must impress upon children. This involvement of theirs sometimes reaches a state of excessively unhealthy indulgence. And then later on, in many cases, people expect reciprocity for such indulgence, which, I have noticed quite often, doesn’t take place (or takes place most unwillingly and out of a half hearted sense of obligation) and makes it a bitter experience across generations.

When I think of such cases, and when I notice that subtle traces of this reality exist all across the social fabric of which I am a part, I feel bound and chained – mentally and emotionally. The need for freedom intensifies; the want of independence increases. And then when I think of you, the intensity doubles, literally!

So, following the idea that your upbringing is dependent upon mine, the first task I have in front of me is to become a free and independent individual myself, in the truest sense.

And hence, I think about what freedom and independence mean … … ???

Consider adulthood Sanjana. Even as an adult you remain the child of ‘mother’ earth and ‘grandmother’ nature, dependent upon their internal conditions and circumstances, as they shape your deeds, your ideas, your personality for as long as you are alive!

And then, also, there are further, subjective choices of mine, according to which I prefer to be dependent. When I consciously rely on another, when I place my trust in someone else’s hands and so on and so forth…

Where is the escape from dependency then? Where then do I find perpetual and unaffected freedom?

But then, what if this is not how freedom and independence are to be defined? What if having the ability to do, believe and think all by one’s self is not the right definition of freedom?; because under such a definition, even as I stretch my mind to extremes, I am still not able to find a single example (real or hypothetical) when such independence and freedom are achieved.

I feel the dire need to look for another definition for freedom and independence, especially as I have always associated these words with a healthy life… But then, maybe, I need to find, instead, another definition for healthy life! … …

All this can go on in circles, and we might not get anywhere!! Because these are exactly the confusions I face as one belonging to the 20th century – which, by the way, makes me time dependent

I am going to stop here because this is as far as I can take myself at this point in time, and beyond this I will only ramble (not that I haven’t been doing that throughout this letter). Secondly, I have a ‘real’ life to get back to! …

Although I don’t think that will ever stop me from going further into this inquiry. In fact consider this letter an invitation for you to be part of the inquiry, and the subsequent pursuit of freedom, as we end up redefining it. It’s not mine, nor is it yours alone; it is for everyone, and, as I said earlier, you and I can only play a minute, insignificant role in it, which, in reality, will be more than enough for our own, personal selves.

As far as the immediate is concerned – how I will be a part of your upbringing, I would mostly want it to be via observation, i.e. you observing my growing up.

I must confess that I never thought that I would want it this way. I wanted to indulge in you, spoil you, cuddle you in my arms and speak in unclear, baby lingo. I will do all that also. I know that, because I cannot, all at once, let go off my own mental paradigms, which have guided me since childhood. But yes, whenever I indulge this way, I know there will be another part of me calling unto me and telling me that ‘listen you are doing all this not for the child, but for your own self, for your own indulgences, and you might have to pay heftily for that… if you truly lover her and care for her nourishment then think about what she needs!’ …

Honestly, I have no clue about what you need … and so I will let you determine most of that for yourself.

At least I am clear about defining freedom to that extent!
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As I end this letter, my dear and beloved Sanjana, I wish you a beautiful life. I pray that God gives you an open heart and an open mind. If anything I would want you to take as a training lesson from my side, I would ask you to be thankful, at every stage of your life. Thankful that you are, have been, and will be so much better off (in many different ways) from so many others around, before and after you, respectively.

Being thankful makes us patient!

God bless you!

Your Friend,

Hamza

Tags: Freedom, Independence, Nature, Relationships, Sanjana Zehra, Upbringing