by DR. PRITAM ROHILA
Long before, Abbottabad in Pakistan got associated with Osama bin Laden, Dr. Ali Rizvi, the current President of the Association for Communal Harmony in Asia (www.asiapeace.org), penned the following poem, as an ode to Abbotabad.
He writes, “I grew up in Abbottabad, with fond memories of a beautiful city and it pains me to find that it is in the news now, having achieved notoriety for an entirely different and undeserved reason… I wrote the poem at age 19 while getting ready to leave home to attend medical school in Lahore. It may betray naiveté and innocence, but perhaps we need a little more of that, and a little less dogma and vindictiveness in our present world.”
Currently Dr. Rizvi teaches at an American university school of medicine.
A DWELLING SO PEACEFUL
(Abbottabad – May 19, 1982)
by DR. ALI RIZVI
How I yearn to dwell
In a dwelling so peaceful
That the sounds I hear
The things I do
The worries so few
The trees in a grove
The fields of love
The sweet and friendly air
The food that I share
With people so simple
Yet having ample
Of happiness and ease
And goodness and please
All would enrich my life
And never would I say
To God, if he grants what I pray
“I regret what I got”
For nature, to me, is my lot.