Zahra speaks

A few months ago, I was invited to participate in a conference. The forum was on the national level for the women with disabilities. As the conference was held in Lahore I decided to partake but when I reached the venue I was extremely shocked to see that the venue was not wheelchair accessible and had more than 7 stairs on the entrance. When we enquired from the staff, they bluntly asserted that they will lift my chair up to the entrance of the hotel. Although everything was fantastic in that hotel. It was extremely shameful that despite being informed about the nature of the conference beforehand, the management did not arrange anything to facilitate the people with disabilities who were about to participate in the conference. The conference was aimed to address the issues faced by the people with disabilities in the society and the very location where we were discussing the problems was itself wheelchair inaccessible, the irony is unmistakable! Recently, it was my sisters birthda...

After my first surgery, I was in a very crucial state as my vertebra was not completely supporting the activity of my neck due to its incomplete structure. At that time, the young doctors were on a strike and all the activities of the hospitals were abandoned so my crucial surgery was delayed due to this issue. At this point in time, the doctor himself stated that a little mismanagement with the movement can cause a collapse so in that span of 2 weeks we were continuously living on the edge and additionally I was discharged from the hospital as my next surgery was going to occur in a government hospital. As I was discharged, a very difficult phase of my ailment began. I had to lie straight on my back so that any unusual movement would not happen to result in any collapse. I was always a very active teenager and I never thought that there will be a time when I will be confined to my bed doing nothing but look write up on the wall to discover fascinating artworks from the cracks in th...

The power of words is magnificent, it can either break or make somebody in a matter of seconds. Buddha rightly said, "Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill." It depends on the speaker that how he influences the listener to think and act in a positive manner. Even the general statements that we give in our routine can have a very tremendous impact on somebody. Words are a powerful weapon that can move anyone to the core. While I was striving, I found a very old book in my storeroom. It was the Zahir by Paulo Coelho. I started reading this book and realized that the words were actually drilling into my soul. The plot of this book was love and how it connects somebody with a superlative authority. The storyline revolves around the narrator (famous for his writing on spirituality) who goes on a life-changing journey in search of his disappeared wife. He travels all the way from Paris to Kazakhstan...