Who Are You?

(The following is something i wrote last year in the month of April. A year has passed and I can say another thing or two about it but this would still be the base. Also this was my first attempt.)

...

"Who are you?", a question differently answered by individuals at different times. We were asked by our Professor in the first lecture, an introductory class rather.
"And you have two years to figure it out, that's the time you will spend with us.", he added.
And then after a pause, "And the rest of your life". That smile on his face though.
That's when my journey began. I listed down all i could think of. Following was the order:
My cast
My name
Gender
Religion
My parents (Father mainly, as in my sense of belonging with them)
Country
A human.
"But all this is so common", I thought. Everybody has an origin and humankind is, well obviously, all humans. So what was special about me? Where was i different? Not that i wanted to be different but where does any of these details describe me as me?
I began to think about my identity, and my originality.
This journey on the self knowledge has been a year long as i keep analyzing the same things about myself over and over again. And i have been changing my answer every now and then. But it has been a month or two that i feel 'settled' about where i have landed.
It was hard not to notice how everyone was almost everything that i was. And i started feeling insignificant. I felt so unimportant in one phase. There was nothing i could wear as my "identity". Nothing I could refer to as "me". Was I nobody? Of course, I was. Technically, I WAS somebody. But did anyone care? Did it make any difference?
Whether I was the youngest, the eldest or the middle child, what was my contribution in that? My name, my features, or in anything that could be referred to as 'me', I saw none of my contribution in it.
More like suddenly, all the badges fell down and all the labels flew away. And I started to look around me. I started identifying myself with everyone in my house, students i would see outside, people at my university, people waiting for the bus on the stops. Not everything would be relative but sometimes this other times that. I began to see bits of myself in such bits of almost everyone.
An infant now appeared equal and equally important to me as any adult including myself. Mistakes of everyone started reminding me of my own. And I rarely felt any anger (that i abundantly practiced before). The only thing that would provoke rage in me would be when people would overlook one's need and rights for someone else. Even if they would overlook themselves, i'd feel disturbed and react.
But that (reaction) too has changed now. I guess I started to understand why they'd do so. I do know that one thing we as humans need the most, and that we lack the most in knowledge. Knowledge about ourselves, awareness rather. We need awareness. And with that might come our tendencies to accept others, other cultures, other religions and others' identities.
This realization changed me in some ways. I now accept, for example, a religiously devoted person of any religion as much as i accept a not-so-devoted person of any origin. By accepting them i mean recognizing them as they are and respecting them (i.e. not resisting or threatening or fearing them) and theirs', however it is.
They are as right as I am, as important as I am and as precious as I am. They are as original as i am. They exist, like I do. So none of us is significant if he/she tries to separate himself/herself from the rest of us. Together, as an entity, we are all significant, important and special. And each one of us is equally significant too, equally worthy.
So I'm either nobody or I am what my fellow beings are, in my own way, but still the same. The labels attached to me, the appearances i carry, the way of life, the faith system and the ideas I have may be different but not better or worse than anyone else's. Rather, they are equally important to be concerned, as any other person's.
'But who is the enemy then?', was next in my head. Am I my own enemy? I thought. If i don't condemn destruction and violence of any/all kinds on any/all levels, then i am my own enemy. Self destruction is still destruction.
If I am OK with suppression of one of us or a group of us by some others among us, the yes i am my own enemy. If i don't allow the rights to others, those rights that i demand for myself, then i am what's wrong with the world.

You have no rights to copy, or plagiarize. Thank you.

Celebrating Everyone

Imagine all the roses

And the flowers and the trees.

Now color them all one,

Any color may it be.

Imagine all the fruits

But give them taste the same.

And if the Earth was all a desert

Or one ocean, or one plain.

Imagine nights without the moon,

And no sun to bring a day.

Or all stars if shone like sun

And all life a melting day.

One flavor and one scent

And one weather uniform.

If the differences do end

Will this world have any Charm?

Diversity

-By Kayenat Hameed Khan

One of my classmates was giving a presentation on William Wordsworth on 3rd of May last year(2016). She referred to  "The Daffodils" as an example of what Wordsworth called "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings". And meanwhile, I thought what if all the flowers were daffodils or what if all the plants looked alike and had one color, and i wanted to puke. And that's when it struck me. 

At that moment, i was still in trauma of an incident taken in our department. When a group of students with some policemen 'visited' us because the students were playing some sport past the class timings, in the department lawn. The visitors could not cause any trouble but that led me to a very sad realization. Being students, being students of they same university, we were alienated by many groups and they were equally alien to us. And i felt like if we don't celebrate our differences, we will continue to mourn them. If we don't love, we will hate. If we don't accept each other, we will resist each other. If we don't let live, we will kill.

I am not that much of an artist but i have a point to prove. Somebody once argued that God wants us to live in one particular way and that ideal would be the entire Human society believing in one truth, dressing in one particular way, speaking one honorable language etc etc. And since it's a lot to be real, It will be in heaven.

I don't know about heaven. But regarding this world, I am sure God loved differences and so He created them Himself. If God wanted all of us to think alike, dress alike, be alike and live in one same way, He could have just created clones and given us same brain rather than giving each one of us such a different one. God created diversity and Nature supports it. So if I try to hate, resist and/or eliminate everything that is not me or for me, than i am going against nature. And thus, i decided to post it finally.

You have no rights to don't copy or plagiarize. Thank you.