Moin Khan, an expatriate Pakistani American, carrying ‘a different agenda’ has now reached Mississauga, a popular municipality in the South Ontario, on way to Toronto.
Moin embarked upon a journey from America to Pakistan last month with an aim to prove that Pakistanis are polite and loving people and to dispel the impression post 9/11. On the 25th day into his journey of peace, Moin on Wednesday reached Mississauga on his way to Toronto. “Almost there,” said Moin on his Facebook status.
During all these days of his travel, Moin had experienced several things – some of them quite nasty. In the post-September 11 decade, the idea of “us versus them”, as it was verbalised by American politicians, left an unsettling atmosphere for many Pakistani Americans. “But not everyone believed the divisive rhetoric,” said Shirin Sadeghi at New American Media radio which interviewed Moin during his travel after he reached his 4,000 mile mark in Iowa. Moin, who decided to show the world an image of the goodness of the human spirit, decided to take a motorbike journey from San Francisco to Lahore, Pakistan, to meet ordinary people along the way. He wanted to show them another side of Pakistan. Moin was stung by a bee on his way, came across a horrible weather in Chicago and experienced his bike malfunction.
On July 28, his bike started to trouble him. “This kept happening throughout the day. When I was about 30 miles from Chicago, the bike just completely went out. It was around 10:30. All the lights, the gauges everything went out. I pulled over to the side, stood there for a while, tried a few different things but nothing would work. Then tried push starting in 2nd gear, not even a sound, nothing at all,” he wrote on facebook. But on the good side, he met his old friend Kashif in Chicago who owns a beautiful antique shop called Oak Park Antiques. “Some amazing furniture and carpets, I was actually amazed,” said Moin. “I got a chance to visit the city and go to Devon Street where they have a bunch of Pakistani and Indian restaurants, grocery stores and shops. Shalwar kameezs on sale and there were pan shops too,” added Moin. He was also overwhelmed with the beauty of Mount Rushmore that he went across. “I just couldn’t focus. It’s was magnificent.”
Journey from US to Pakistan: Moin reaches Mississauga
