Dear God

Dear God,

I'm just writing this letter to thank you for the spot you've put me in. It's a very good one with great ventilation and in the evenings I can
even see the sea through the bars of my cell. I've been wanting to write this for a while now but was hesitant because someone told me
you were busy up in the north helping our gallants fight the army of darkness in the form of the Shiv Sena. I hope they're better now.

Then the other day the prison mullah told me you were everywhere, all the time, watching lurking waiting for any sign of weakness. He
changed his story when the warden complained about my constipation (don't you just hate going to the loo in front of someone) and said
you only appeared at mealtimes now on account on massive lay-offs in the astral industry. Now I've decided that you can be wherever
you like whenever you like doing whatever you like with whoever you look. I promise not to look, and I envy you the freedom to slip
through the fingers of the self-righteous.

Keeping in line with the overall improvement in my attitude (which echoes larger trends in the local dreamscape) I've decided to make you
a list of good things in this home you've given us. I figured you don't have a lot to do at the pearly gates nowadays what with all the
Pakistanis going to hell.

The first thing I'd like to thank you for is my eyesight. Without it, I would probably have been floating, green and bloated, in a manhole
somewhere instead of being locked in this tiny cell with the ventilation and the sea view, or perhaps dangling seven meters off the ground
on some loose electric cable that lifted me off a motorcycle. Next is my sense of smell, the very sense that enabled me to identify (via
pheromone) soft heaps on the floor before I stepped in them, thus giving me time to run home and change my shoes if they were cow
patties. This gift also came in handy when I decided to get married as perfume and the smell of the food she cooked was the easiest way
to find the woman most similar to my mother.
(Here I'd like to make special thanks for my mother, who with her over-protectiveness and knapsack of bitterness made it impossible for
me to ever have a healthy relationship with another woman. My mullah tells me this is a very bad thing as it upsets the natural balance of
things)
My sense of hearing was indispensable when eavesdropping which, I must admit, is the secret of my meteoric rise within the organization.

I will not paint this in more vibrant hues, I'm sure Your Omniscience understands perfectly the power of other people's words. It also
sweetly complimented my sense of touch, as it warned me of the approach of others while reviewing strategies for the eventual elimination
of woman as a physical reality as opposed to a mythical being. I have always felt, Lord, that this is what you originally intended, and I'd
just like you to know that your will has been heard (and will be done) by myself and others of my ilk. As I write this a campaign has been
set in motion to lay traps for the unwary so called 'progressives' who seek to hide their uncontrollable carnal appetites under the
umbrellas of psychobabble phrases like 'communication', 'equality' and 'social equilibrium'. They have formed a secret society and meet
every three weeks in an abandoned KFC outlet. Their motto? "Stick to chicks that are quick to fix". Who do they think they're fooling? I
regret to tell you (but I might as well since you must know anyway) that my wife was such a one. I use the word 'was' deliberately Lord.
Yes. Thanks to the strength your Divine but Invisible Presence gave me, I managed to get rid of her WITHOUT PAYING A PAISA IN
Maintenance.

If I made obeisance for all that you have blessed me with I would go on forever and a day, and I can't because the PM already took that
spot. I must, however, thank you for my sense of balance without which I would not have been able to hang on to the backs of the buses
which ferried me from here to there, or install the kundas which provide the electricity with which I once wrote.

I must thank you for my sense of proportion which told me when to stop so I would have enough food left on my plate to save for my next
meal, and how much clean water I could drink so I'd have some left over for the next week. Of course, I couldn't have done any of this
without my sense of self preservation which ensured I would be able to ride whichever wave of exploitation was popular at the moment.

As I sit here watching the first shadows creep doglike towards my ankles to lick them into motion towards the light switch I am almost
moved to tears at the sheer magnitude of the blessing which you have bestowed upon me. Life. Sweet life. How many of us truly
appreciate the ability to draw breath, or for that matter brush teeth (that's what makes us better than the animals, they have to chew tree
bark)?

The sky continues to darken outside and in the distance I hear the footsteps coming to give me my food. Sometimes they even send
people, but lately they've taken to just shoving it under the door. They say to each other that I scare them, that I am neither a good man
nor a bad man, and so not human.
Pakistani logic. Something else to thank you for.
To me I am just a man, your gifts wrapped in layers of conditioning. (My mullah is just a goat, but don't tell him I told you).

For my next birthday, can you please take away my sense of the ridiculous?

In eternal gratitude,

- A Pushto movie watcher caught in a raid on a cinema and imprisoned for bad taste