In this land, history rhymes a lot; can you feel it? This haunting melody that echoes through generations, promises, betrayals and broken dreams of a nation that hasn’t been ours for as long as one can remember. 

And in this history, in this loop of ours, there is always a little boy, a boy carrying the weight of the universe on his small shoulders. His father speaks of a cause. He believes in it, in this fairytale they paint for him, this dream destined to confine him, betray him, as it always does. Because in the end, hands shake, lives get reduced to numbers, and that little boy will return to collect what’s left of home, of hope, of a nation. 

He steps into the world, absorbing stories of warriors and martyrs, of the battles of freedom, the “cause”, and the sacrifices. He learns to revere the flag, not his flag but their flag, their anthem, their identity, their self-fulfilling prophecy. With his little eyes, he’s unable to see the cracks in their fairytales, the untold stories of the truth, the cycle. This broken cycle that we keep repeating, the cycle his father lived, and his grandchildren will live, this tangled hope that is never fulfilled. 

This little boy, standing on the shoulder of the past, dreaming, trying to touch the stars because this time it will be different. However, it never comes to pass. The cause breaks him, shatters his home and alienates his loved ones. It always hits close to home and never hits different. 

And one day, that little boy becomes a man. His son is born, and with him the cycle begins anew. The stories are told again, the promises made again, the warlords change, the causes evolve, the flags get replaced and the outcome is always the same. 

This is not a story of a little boy, but a story of a nation, the story of our people, our land, where history never fails to rhyme. 

But does it really have to be this way? This land, this breathtaking, bleeding land, doesn’t it deserve a little bit more than this tragic anthem? A little bit more than fleeting promises and half-built nations. It deserves better than narratives tied to the agendas and banners of division.

Let me break the cycle. Let me save that little boy from the rubble and the sound barriers. Let him carry nothing heavier than his own dreams and let him run after them under a sky unclouded by war. 

Let me question the narratives, challenge the cycles and let religion unite us; it was never meant to divide us. Let me give the next little boy a nation, a dream, a vision. Not some half-built castles in the same cycle.  

Perhaps, if you let our generation break the cycle, the next little boy will grow in a world where history doesn’t rhyme anymore, where handshakes aren’t drenched in blood, and lives aren’t reduced to numbers, where he carries a flag that represents his cause, his future full of hope, his cycle. Because our cycle is broken.