Dead or alive, b'day shines

What if bin Laden sends a birthday invite to Bush? Will there be an e-card in return for the world’s most precious head?
But why an e-card? Why not a bouquet of 50 red roses and a wish for long life scripted on expensive handmade paper from the White House?
Bush doesn’t have the address, stupid. Then how does he have the email details?
Come on. The US president would reply to the last alert from al Qaeda.
Laden celebrated his 50th year on earth — the planet he aims to paint in blood — today. Newspapers across the world were flooded on Net with the news. But there was a difference.
Those where the sun rises later wrote in the second paragraph, if not in the intro, that the West doubts if its villain was alive to cut the cake, but those who maintain a diplomatic centrist stand in line with their geographical position, were teeming with wishes scripted under a thin veil to save a US glare.
Let’s for once, believe that Laden is alive. More than his birthday Saturday made the US a laughing stock once again. The world’s most dreaded man showed how he romped home with an unbeaten 50 defying the most publicised manhunt in history.
The US and the coalition claimed to have turned every stone in search of the fugitive on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border till, intelligence analysts say, it went cold in despair.
The US believes Laden was killed during its assault on the rugged terrains of Nooristan and Kunar, but it still can’t forget the dead man’s birthday. Any news on his death is still worth $25 billion.
Let’s imagine the US is right and Laden has been stumped before his half-century. Does it help the world with a sigh of relief?
If Laden is lost, Bush isn’t. If Laden is hated for the deadliest act against civilisation, can we spare Bush who played the butcher across the West Asia?
Dead or alive, the Laden lair in the Taliban bastion, however, will keep off from a birthday bash today, according to an Islamic portal which strongly backed the Laden-alive story. The fundamentalist sect that he follows — it’s called Bida — doesn’t greenlight birthday celebrations, the portal said. It fears the fun and frolic would invite western contamination.
Poor Osama.

Life amid dying dreams

The other day I woke up with a broken dream. I scurried into the loo for a splash on my face to hit back on the earth that’s dear yet dreaded. I gazed for long into the reflection of my face on the mirror. Long enough for the dripping water drops to vanish.
I was perhaps trying to repair the broken threads of the dream to make it complete.
But I failed. Perhaps, dreams are destined to die, most often premature.
We tread the path of life probably because we are tasked to do so. We meet people and we get distanced — probably because it is previously decided. We enjoy someone’s company and we part — blame it on the destiny again.
Then what can we do at all ourselves?
We can make bombs. We can wipe out large swathes of life with the press of a single button.
But we can’t restore it because we are not programmed to do so.
By now, pressed under incoherent thoughts, the broken threads of my dream have started fragmenting. They won’t take long to vanish, I know.
Dreams born and die like this. Days follow the same track. We keep moving, nevertheless. A relentless process of breathing continues unabated till the final call.
We call it survival. The survivor is the fittest, thus spake the scientist.
But are we, all those claiming to be the survivors, alive? Are surviving and being in life the same?
I beg to defy.
We are all dead, lost in an abyss of darkness. We feign to be alive and we die every time our dreams suffer a death blow. We die with our dreams but we, the Homo sapiens, can shrug off the death knell to our dreams and wake up to weave new dreams.
Why? Perhaps, we still look for life in dreams.