4 minute imagination: 6 people sitting in a Pakistani train Cabin by Chance and start relating to each other by 'big talk'.
First off, Characters:
• Doctor
• businessman
• guard
• writer
• truck driver
• molvi (religious monk)
Now, Your imagination starts in
3
2
1:
Doctor, Truck driver and Businessman enter and start filling the empty cabin.
Guard enters and asks: Is this cabin no. 5?
Truck driver and doctor reply (simultaneously) : Yes.
Guard comes and sits on his seat.
Writer enters and sits with the window.
Glancing outside the window he cannot keep his feelings for the lovely rainy weather outside and speaks up: The weather is so pleasant this evening.
Businessman: I hate this rain.
Doctor: Well, people who love it be prepared to get a cold because this harsh weather isn’t calming down till another week.
Molvi enters and says with a heavy voice: AsalaamoAleikum! (Islamic greeting)
Guard and truck driver greet back in Arabic and the doctor and writer nod their head with a smile.
Businessman: You must be a molvi !
Molvi: And why do you say that?
Businessman: People don’t greet strangers no more; nobody has time and neither does it matter.
Molvi: It’s mandatory for every Muslim.
Doctor: Why don’t you just sit and enjoy your ride.
(Molvi sits down with a look on his face to both.)
Writer approaches the molvi: How do you do? My name is Taha. I am a writer.
Molvi with a smile: AsalaamoAleikum! I’m a Hafiz e Quran. (a person who has learnt the muslim holy book by heart)
Businessman with a funny smile: Hafiz e Quran! And what do you do for a living?
Molvi: I teach children how to read and recite the Quran with perfection.
Businessman: I’m sure there must be a lot of money in this line of work. Hah.
Molvi: It’s not about the money, I’m spreading my religion.
Businessman: Then why don’t you do it for free?
Molvi: Why don’t you mind your own business?
Businessman: Gentleman that is what I am doing for the past 35 years.
Businessman laughs and looks away.
Doctor: If you don’t mind me asking, what do you do for a living?
Businessman speaks while taking a cigarette and a lighter out of his pocket: I don’t do anything for a living, I have people who make money for me. Cigarettes anyone?
Doctor: No thanks!
Molvi says and looks away: Astagfirullah! (I seek forgiveness from God)
Businessman: What has this got to do with your Islam?
Molvi: Its haram!(forbidden) Smoking will kill you!
Businessman with a smile: Only if I live right?
Writer: hah, what do you mean?
Businessman: What do I mean? Do you have any proof that somebody died before his actual death time because he used to smoke?
Writer stares at the floor thinking about it.
Businessman: Gentleman there is no such thing as ‘cigarettes will kill you’. It’s an advertising tool made years ago by people like me to run down tobacco business.
Doctor: That’s not true. Cigarette contains Nicotine and Tar. Such ingredients pave the way for more than 5000 different types of diseases.
Businessman: That is called genius advertising; and you have been outrun.
Doctor: Sir, I’m sure you are standing right at the junction of lack of awareness about everything except money.
Businessman: Believe whatever you want to. (Pause) But you’re damn right about that …. money thingy you were talking about.
Guard: Well, it doesn’t matter. Money is not that important. I’m a security guard at a respectable building; my salary is very low but I have never needed more.
Businessman: You’re wrong! Money is power. Respect it and it will value you.
Writer: That’s the exact concept about money which is evolving us to be animals. Money is important, but not more than the fuel in your car.
Truck driver: Non sense! I drive trucks whole year round in the Middle East and I am never satisfied with the money they give me. It’s just never enough. We do all the work; we pay all the taxes, and rich misters like you (Pointing at the businessman) get all the money. Still all you want is to get richer and richer. Mister writer (looking at the writer) it’s these sort of human beings that are turning this society into a whole human race of money hunters. Money is good; but such people are not!
Businessman: That’s it! I’m not arguing with these stupid people. I’ve got a company to run.
Guard: You don’t argue because you don’t have a point. Okay, so even if you achieve all the money you need, what will you do then?
(Businessman pauses and thinks)
Guard: I had a neighbor who had a dog that used to bark and run after every car going in the street. One day I asked him, ‘why his dog does that’; To which he replied, ‘I don’t know that but I wonder sometimes, what will he even do if he catches a car; and I’m sure the dog also hasn’t thought that out. You are in a race and all you know is to run. You don’t know where you want the car to go once you’ve got the fuel.
Writer: You know, you’re making sense. I wish I was born in a time when money didn’t exist. I don’t even know why all of you are on this topic, to be honest. Look outside the window, there is so much more to think about.
Molvi: It’s the media! they are Dajjal(anti-christ)! They brainwash the public to work more so that they can earn more. That’s why I didn’t go to a university. All this educational system is trying to do is turn us into minions that can play with the machines and do all the paperwork for the bosses. Our only purpose is to serve God and die peacefully.
Writer: If your Only purpose was to serve God, you should’ve born among angels.
Molvi: You cannot talk about my religion like that. Our religion orders to chop your head off if any nonsense is spoken about it.
Writer: So now I’m being blamed for blasphemy. Brother I did not have any ill intentions saying that. But I do wonder… if your religion is based on intentions which you never get to know of anybody else other than yourself, how can you chop someone’s head off based on this poor judgement?
Doctor: That’s interesting. More importantly, Why did your Prophet not chop the head off that woman who used to throw garbage on Him? a Prophet with followers! who would've stopped him?
Molvi: Because He was a Prophet with a loving and caring nature. He couldn’t harm even the animals.
Guard: Isn’t that what we need to follow brother? If we chop people’s head off, who is going to be interested to become us? To become a Muslim? We chop their head off out of respect and love for the Prophet, while eliminating the Prophet’s very own purpose… of spreading Islam.
It’s like running to save people from drowning and before they make up their mind to take your help, you chop their heads off. Nobody drowned. Problem solved.
Doctor: That’s misunderstanding! Hearing others but not listening.
We , as a mix of different societies living on this planet have completely misunderstood each other.
Look at this cup for example, where is the handle?
Molvi: On the right side.
Businessman: On the left side.
(Molvi and Businessman sitting facing each other; Cup in between)
Doctor: Aren’t you both right? Think about it. If you can just go to the other person’s side, you will start seeing the other to be right as well. That’s understanding.
Writer: And same goes with the topic of money, we have totally misunderstood how much it means. In the old times, People used to practice the art of living; to discover more of the 3 big mysteries that connect to everything we know and do: Human, World and Life. What are they actually?
Now, we’re just a bunch of evolved money planners. Some hire people to plan that and others get hired to make the plans. There is nothing Human left inside all of us.
Molvi: You’re right! It’s the media! They are Dajjal! They are the Illuminati ! They are doing this!
Truck Driver: Oh please! Somebody calm him down.
Doctor (to the writer): If you are spending so much time on studying religion, invest it in studying different religious paradoxes. For example the paradox of free will. This problem has been here since Aristotle. If God already knows everything in advance, how am I at free will?
Molvi: Whatever is going to happen in your life is already known by God in advance. Your free will is the options you choose in life for something to happen.
Doctor: Are you saying that God does not know what option I will choose?
Molvi: (pause) … He does…obviously.
Doctor: Then, what is my free will?
(Silence of 5 seconds)
Doctor: Look, I’m a doctor. According to my medical point of view, there is some nervous twitching of ideas in my brain that sends signal to my muscles. The heart responds to the idea in my brain and sends energy to the muscles, they twitch and I reach out my arm; let’s say to pick up a glass of water. But how can I call that free will? Every step of that process is governed by physical universal laws.
Writer: Wow! So if I have the idea of murdering you, was that also predestined by God? I mean God did know about it before I was even born right?
Then what is the point of making me? So that I murder a person in my life and then burn in hell forever? If everything happens by God’s will, this would too. I do not see a point.
Guard: That is a strange paradox!
Writer: When you imagine God; and everybody does. If your imagination has a good God, it does not matter how we act to show Him we fear him, as long as we became the Best version of ourselves that we could be.
Molvi: Are you saying my religion is wrong?
Writer: Oh No my brother, not at all. All I am saying is think. Please think. We have invested the least of our time studying the most important knowledge, our own faiths. What will we answer to all the critical minds of the coming generations if we are following a faith we do not think about?
Businessman: You speak big words. But the society doesn’t care about all of this nonsense. Be practical. You’re going to die one day, build yourself an empire before you leave.
Guard: I’m a guard. I observe society 24/7. And do you know why you see so many sad news these days? It’s because all of this dread, murder, floods come with great viewer demand. That’s what society’s nature is. Man wants chaos. It's in all of us. Sure, the media tries to put a sad face on these things, painting them up as great human tragedies. But we all know the function of the media has never been to eliminate the evils of the world, no. Their job is to persuade us to accept those evils and get used to living with them. The powers that be want us to be passive observers. And they haven't given us any other options outside the occasional, purely symbolic act of voting. You want the puppet on the right or the puppet on the left? If this is the society you are talking about, I’d care the least what society thinks.
(5 second pause)
Writer: society has always wanted to create more and more of its kind of human beings; everybody who is or thinks differently is being told that he is not; his whole life.
Doctor: Thinking about one single human’s potential and seeing all of this, why is our human history not stories of progress but just addition of zeros to the calendar? No new value has been created.
Truck Driver: In that sense, the greeks, 3000 years ago were just as advanced as we are today. Technology has evolved yes, but the values are the same. People still kill people.
Guard: That’s true. A single human being has a lot of potential for the 60 years lifespan he has been given but a lot of us die before achieving our true potential. The true artist, true saint, true philosopher is rarely achieved.
Molvi: Why so few?
Writer: The answer to that can be found in another question and it’s this:
What is the most Universal human characteristic ? Fear or Laziness?
Molvi: Hmmm …. I also wonder sometimes. Sometimes I feel as if I am observing my life from the perspective of an old man waiting to die. Like my waking life is his memories and I am just an observer eye going through his memories.
Doctor: I heard that Tim Leary said as he was dying that he was looking forward to the moment when his body was dead but his brain was still alive. You know they say that there's still six to twelve minutes of brain activity after everything else is shutdown. And a second of dream consciousness, right, well, that's infinitely longer than a waking second. You know what I'm saying?
Molvi: Oh, yeah, definitely. For example, I wake up and it is 10:12, and then I go back to sleep and I have those long, intricate, beautiful dreams that seem to last for hours, and then I wake up and it's ... 10:13.
Doctor: Yeah, exactly. So then six to twelve minutes of brain activity, I mean, that could be your whole life. I mean, you are that old man looking back over everything.
Molvi: Okay, so what if I am? Then what would You be in all that?
Doctor: Whatever I am right now. I mean, yeah, maybe I only exist in your mind. But it doesn’t matter. I am still just as real as anything else!
(Pause * think * smile)