Blas phe my

By Javed Rashid , March , 7, 2012

That I always found Tanvee r as irritati ng and insuffe rable is an unders tateme nt. Arroga nt and cocky, he was conscio us of his superio r intellec t. He would be rude and would insult lesser mortals .his mother

contrib uted to this brashn ess and rudene ss. " my son is a genius like his father , the second Einstei n in my family " she would boast . Indeed he did his doctora te from MIT in Nuclear Physics and was obviou sly on his way to

further glory. Seeped in science and nuclear physics he deeme d the traditio nal and conven tional as primiti ve and decade nt, he would be dismiss ive of all that passed as culture or traditio n, to him the West and the

US were the Mecca of all civiliza tions and though t. I general ly avoide d any discuss ion with him; in fact I avoide d any contact with him, but unfortu nately had to suffer him occasio nally. I usually

kept to myself and let him speak; listen to his brags, some justifie d, in silence. He would flash the latest edition of Science , or Lancelo t or some other such magazi ne in my face, deman ding to know if I had

ever read it . He knew fully well that I , with my less than brillian t intellec t, had never ever heard of these .A simple poultry farmer s , had concer ns of feed, market prices and vaccina tion in mind and lofty

concer ns of the brillian t was all Greek and Latin , even most titles in these magazi nes were way beyond my compre hensio n. Tanvee r let no opport unity to make me feel small, ordinar y and useless ; it hurt as most

of what he implied about me was true. I was all that. He came back from the US, with his doctora te with the intent to conque r all in backwa rd, underd evelope d and struggli ng Pakista n. He had lofty goals

and the whole world seemed at his feet. There was howeve r some elemen t of instabil ity in him, even I with my limited knowle dge could feel a streak of madne ss. Better minds than me say that there is a thin

line betwee n genius and madne ss. The signs of such self destruc tive tenden cies were someti mes visible to even someo ne like me. He did do about getting rich, he used his intellec t and knowle dge of comput

ers and progra mming to set up a busines s that provid ed digital solutio ns to most proble ms, . Very soon the industr y came to him seeking answer s to a myriad of proble ms and he provid ed them answer s. To

me most times it seems that his answer s were more a matter of commo n sense than of higher science or knowle dge. Whatev er be the fact he did earn a whole lot of money and very soon became a very rich man, he

natural ly flouted his wealth , a house in the best locality , the latest Merced es , holiday s in Europe and of course a beautif ul chic wife . Success came natural ly to him , althoug h it was not that he emulat ed Einstei

n as all his success came from slightly dubiou s busines s ventur es rather than from any theoret ical achieve ments . He thus became a busines sman, success ful and rich. In all this he kept up with his arroga nce and

rudene ss. Snubbi ng lesser mortals and never letting go of an opport unity to let them know of his sharp mind and his busines s acume n. He remain ed the insuffe rable person that I had known for long ,but wealth,

made him even more arroga nt and haught y . This mercifu lly for me meant that he had very little time for me , only very seldom would I have had to suffer his rants about his success es and achieve ments . He

continu ed to deride religio n and claime d Islam was a man made one, which was copied from earlier religio ns and was to him not a religio n at all . I usually avoide d respon ding to his liberal moder nist version

s of what religio n is all about. He had theorie s of how religio n evolved and how the concep t of God evolved etc. , I found it difficul t to match his grasp of logic and religio n and was often found wantin g in

providi ng argume nts in suppor t of religio n and Islam . I would use the force of anger, whenev er he crossed the red line, which constit uted the Prophe t (pbuh) himself . He someh ow stoppe d short of crossin g this

red line , and an uneasy peace prevail ed betwee n us. With time he got more and more cocky and arroga nt, the last time I met him was in a party, he was sitting at a table where I, unfortu nately, was also

allotted a seat. Like most evenin gs he was a little bit drunk and as soon as he saw men started off on his trashin g of religio n,I defend ed my religio n as best as I could do . This time, howeve r, he started crossin

g the red line . He stared to criticiz e the Holy prophe t himself , seems my anger did not seem relevan t to him anymor e. There were other people sitting on the table who also attemp ted to defend the holy

Prophe t , his rants were related to wars and the punish ment to the Jewish tribe who betraye d the Muslim s during the Meccan war . I tried to stop him but to no avail. Most went away from that table in disgust. It was

an evenin g ruined for me by the brash and cocky Tanvee r , this of course was nothing new., he had, howeve r, crossed that red line . After a while I learnt that he is sick. I found out that he has a stroke, partiall

y disabli ng him. When I met him he was a shadow of old self, slurred speech , inabilit y to walk and inabilit y to concen trate on anythin g at all , he was an a bad shape. He survive d the stroke but became

almost useless, depend ent on others for simple chores Unable and unwilli ng to get involve d in any activity ,a great depres sion set upon him. He was physica lly not entirel y cripple d but was mentall y dead. The

intellec t was not there anymor e, he became a show of himself . To me is seems that He takes offense at trashin g of his belove d , why do we need blasph emy laws , He dishes out punish ments to the transgr

essors Himself .