As hearty pals or fiendish foes, Pakistan and India are condemned to live alongside each other
In our bid to loathe, we’ve dehumanised each other. We have lost empathy, because it has been ages that an ordinary lad from Islamabad sat with a young bloke from Delhi and discussed the hidden frustrations and shared fantasies that describe youth
There is no running away. No chance at redemption available to an individual called visa and a flight to a land far, far away where a new life awaits him. For Pakistan and India, there is no restart button, no new beginnings and no deus ex machina. The luxury of getting new passports and new identities is, unfortunately, not available to either Pakistan or India or more than a billion people of both countries who are condemned to live and die here till Judgment Day as their fatherlands have ‘No Exit’ written on every nook, every wall and every cranny.
Many of us share the fate of our beloved motherlands. We have to put up with misery in all its gory forms because the ‘husbands’ (read leaders) of our land are either posing as mythic titans or busy in one-upmanship. All of this should better end as we have too many ‘weary’ generations before us.
Pakistan and India have barely lost any opportunity to teach each other ‘lessons’. Now both neighbours revel in a schadenfreude that was cultivated over time and has become so mammoth it’ll take years before Pakistanis and Indians think of each other as regular human beings, capable of basic human emotions.
In our bid to loathe, we’ve dehumanised each other. We have lost empathy, because it has been ages that an ordinary lad from Islamabad sat with a young bloke from Delhi and discussed the hidden frustrations and shared fantasies that describe youth.
We don’t sit, talk and dine together but when we do, there are plain clothes wearing farishtas from K-Block interrogate us afterwards by asking what we talked about, why we sat and what we wolfed down while dining with thedushman. Dear shrewd sleuths, I ask you this, what great secrets can we barter over a plate of delicious Bombay Biryani and other delicacies?
Tit-for-tat is the supreme principle we follow and the only dictum we adhere to goes something like, ‘In nukes we trust’. Our usual blame game starts with RAW-RSS-Shiv Sina being squarely responsible for all the suffering Muslims of Pakistan and India face. From the other side of LOC, it is ISI-Hafiz Saeed-Kashmiri militants that wreak havoc in an otherwise idyllic India.
Kashmir, ahh, that daughter of Eve both Able and Cain are willing to do anything for. Be it Akhand Bharat or Kashmir banay gaa Pakistan the solution lies not in slogans yelled with all the might of our lungs. Rather than playing to the local and international galleries for empty applause and/or pat on the back both Able and Cain need to talk Eve over on a table as by force none will have her or retain her. Moral of the story: It is better to behave like good neighbours rather than archetypal characters from scriptures of yore.
We share more than borders, dearest sirs and ma’ams, we share languages that sound familiar even if we don’t understand one jot of them, we share common heritage that is engulfed in haze, we share echoes that go unheard in minarets, temples and mosques, we share nightmares that came to be known as ‘slices from history’, we share idols we no longer believe in and gods that have forsaken us when we needed them the most.
Pakistan and India have failed their masses as in our quest of being different, being more grand, being more towering than our neighbour we’ve alienated our common man. We’ve robbed him of opportunities that awaited him if our borders were mounted by fewer soldiers, if less barbed-wire was used in making them ‘secure and sealed’, imagine what less weapons, less soldiers, less paranoia could translate into. Yes, you are right, it could translate into more jobs, more bread, more interaction.
About time that movers and shakers on both sides practice what they always knew secretly; war is always profitable, peace, however, is merely preferable. We must wake up to the realisation that eventually our hankering after ‘profitable’ will obliterate us both.
I request Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and PM Narendra Modi to stand up against the above-mentioned, shared ‘history’ in a nutshell and forge a novel way so that we, the people, can have what we’ve been promised at inception.
Dear PMs, don’t give in to populism and stop perpetuating the ‘convenient foe’ image that comes in handy when there is neither white nor black side to affairs. PM Nawaz can appease his fellow countrymen by championing Kashmir, while PM Modi can cite burning Balochistan with Brahamdagh seconding him from farangi land to mollify his folks back home.
Where do these choices actually lead? Yes, they lead to a very familiar land commonly referred to as, ‘Square One’. The act of adding fuel whenever things are already aflame and fanning those flames with glee and wanton is a shared inferno we rot in.
I wait to bask in the twilight when this senseless enmity will breathe its last. And I know for a fact that masses of both countries want to make war not love. No, dearest sirs and ma’ams, the spite we have administered in our common man’s veins for half a dozen decades has resulted in 6th September and 21st December more heartily quoted and cherished than more celebrated 14th August and 15 January.
What happened in the August of 1947 is referred to as partition by calmer, reflective souls. More enthusiastic, passionate fellas mount a flag on their homes, ride their bikes sans silencers and celebrate their Independence Day. What ought to have been the day of contemplation and poise, dearest sirs and ma’ams, became the day an entire nation gets intoxicated on patriotism, wave their flags high only to be joined by their next door neighbours the morning after. Happy belated Independence Day, India and Pakistan.
Where do these choices actually lead? Yes, they lead to a very familiar land commonly referred to as, ‘Square One’. The act of adding fuel whenever things are already aflame and fanning those flames with glee and wanton is a shared inferno we rot in
