From a thoughtful reader in Pakistan
Howdy, y'all. I'm honored to get e-mail from folks all over the world. Your words really mean a lot to me.
Here are some e-mails sent to me from a teenager in Pakistan. She writes from the heart. Read from the bottom up and, when you get to the last one, reach deep into your pockets, if'n ya can. We all share the same world. Thanks. JT
Oct 10
hi jt this is afshan again . hope youre doing well. im writing to you totally shattered. im sure u must have heard of the pakistan quake that just took place on saturday that killed almost 40, 000 people. entire families have been wiped out. in the state of kashmir it looks like the day of judegement has arrived. i live in northern punjab in lahore, and when the quake happened, it felt as if the ground had coiled up in waves benath our feet. former villages look like ghost towns.
many friends of my family have died. one fifth of the people to die were children under the age of 5. people that are from the north, who work in our houses, are told that that their wives , their children their parents have all died. and ours is one of the poorest countries in the world.
i dont know what is going to happen. please if you can please send whatever you can, and please spread the word around to whomever u think can help. websites like www.redcross.org
www.mercycorps.org www.oxfam.org can help greatly. thank u sooooooooooo much.
love
afshan
Sept 17
JT!!! i was absolutely riveted when i saw your email. thank you so much for replying. it was so important because it is absolutely necassary and primal for young writers to forge a response to what they write. i was happy that your response to a pakistani was cool!. its important that other americans recognie that we are also people of faith, of craft of a willl to seek what individuality possesses. we arent a pack of bomb-slingers, and dark hoarders of primitive dictums and rites. im sorry to get all political on you, but its so pathetic, that in this world , my generation has to be keenly aware of the political identity they have. we are all obsessed with how we are percieved. and for a writer this political, guarded identity obtains a sixth sense. it is wonderful, wonderful that people from america and pakistan can share only an artistic language. i think the "artist" is vital to the un-seeded , world we inhabit. it is a world without roots. he discovers the raw stuff, of what the world can engulf and protect, of what youth and language can foster. it is a balance , which forms the stiches of our planet. art can be the stemmer, and creator of at once a distance and a seizure of what people contend with. it is a voice, willing to illuminate, all that is stagnant and un-measured. i want to achieve good writing, to understand my country and to make it real in my heart. to know, this is the life we've lived and what is there to be encapsulated and preserved like fire for the future.
Aug, 21
you might not read this, but i believe all writers are communal, and need to remain within words and the poetry
one has to expunge from it. you are bold your work has truth. you are necassary. you have led a life that could not have remained without words. you are different because you have a compulsion to evict what you have felt.
it is stunning when that happens. i am a teenager, and i live in pakistan, if you write back, that would be great we dont have many fiction heroes here but we do have children who have lived like you lived, buit cannot speak of itbecause they have not been taught how to write. if they could read you would be their hero.
Here are some e-mails sent to me from a teenager in Pakistan. She writes from the heart. Read from the bottom up and, when you get to the last one, reach deep into your pockets, if'n ya can. We all share the same world. Thanks. JT
Oct 10
hi jt this is afshan again . hope youre doing well. im writing to you totally shattered. im sure u must have heard of the pakistan quake that just took place on saturday that killed almost 40, 000 people. entire families have been wiped out. in the state of kashmir it looks like the day of judegement has arrived. i live in northern punjab in lahore, and when the quake happened, it felt as if the ground had coiled up in waves benath our feet. former villages look like ghost towns.
many friends of my family have died. one fifth of the people to die were children under the age of 5. people that are from the north, who work in our houses, are told that that their wives , their children their parents have all died. and ours is one of the poorest countries in the world.
i dont know what is going to happen. please if you can please send whatever you can, and please spread the word around to whomever u think can help. websites like www.redcross.org
www.mercycorps.org www.oxfam.org can help greatly. thank u sooooooooooo much.
love
afshan
Sept 17
JT!!! i was absolutely riveted when i saw your email. thank you so much for replying. it was so important because it is absolutely necassary and primal for young writers to forge a response to what they write. i was happy that your response to a pakistani was cool!. its important that other americans recognie that we are also people of faith, of craft of a willl to seek what individuality possesses. we arent a pack of bomb-slingers, and dark hoarders of primitive dictums and rites. im sorry to get all political on you, but its so pathetic, that in this world , my generation has to be keenly aware of the political identity they have. we are all obsessed with how we are percieved. and for a writer this political, guarded identity obtains a sixth sense. it is wonderful, wonderful that people from america and pakistan can share only an artistic language. i think the "artist" is vital to the un-seeded , world we inhabit. it is a world without roots. he discovers the raw stuff, of what the world can engulf and protect, of what youth and language can foster. it is a balance , which forms the stiches of our planet. art can be the stemmer, and creator of at once a distance and a seizure of what people contend with. it is a voice, willing to illuminate, all that is stagnant and un-measured. i want to achieve good writing, to understand my country and to make it real in my heart. to know, this is the life we've lived and what is there to be encapsulated and preserved like fire for the future.
Aug, 21
you might not read this, but i believe all writers are communal, and need to remain within words and the poetry
one has to expunge from it. you are bold your work has truth. you are necassary. you have led a life that could not have remained without words. you are different because you have a compulsion to evict what you have felt.
it is stunning when that happens. i am a teenager, and i live in pakistan, if you write back, that would be great we dont have many fiction heroes here but we do have children who have lived like you lived, buit cannot speak of itbecause they have not been taught how to write. if they could read you would be their hero.
posted by JT LeRoy at 9:38 AM
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