Pakistan Opens Indian Visitors' Eyes

[Riaz Haq]

Several prominent Indian journalists and writers have visited Pakistan in recent years for the first time in their lives.  I am sharing with my readers selected excerpts of the reports from Mahanth Joishy (USIndiaMonitor.com), Panakaj Mishra (Bloomberg), Hindol Sengupta (The Hindu), Madhulika Sikka (NPR) and Yoginder Sikand (Countercurrents) of what they saw and how they felt in the neighbor's home. My hope is that their stories will help foster close ties between the two estranged South Asian nations.

Mahanth S. Joishy, Editor, usindiamonitor.com :  (July, 2012)

Many of us travel for business or
leisure.  But few ever take a trip that dramatically shatters their
entire worldview of a country and a people in one fell swoop.  I was
lucky enough to have returned from just such a trip: a week-long sojourn
in Pakistan.

It was a true eye-opener, and a
thoroughly enjoyable one at that.  Many of the assumptions and feelings I
had held toward the country for nearly 30 years were challenged and
exposed as wrong and even ignorant outright.

 ------------------------------

 The Western and Indian media feed us a steady diet of stories about bomb
blasts, gunfights, kidnappings, torture, subjugation of women,
dysfunctional government, and scary madrassa schools that are training
the next generation of jihadist terrorists.  And yes, to many Westerners
and especially Indians, Pakistan is the enemy, embodying all that is
wrong in the world.  Incidents such as the beheading of
American journalist Daniel Pearl, 26/11
and the Osama Bin Laden raid in Abottobad have not helped the cause
either.  Numerous international relations analysts proclaim that
Pakistan is “the most dangerous place in the world” and the border with
India is “the most dangerous border in the world.”

--------------------------------------

(Upon arrival in Karachi) two uniformed bodyguards with rifles who
were exceedingly friendly and welcoming climbed onto the pickup truck
bed as we started on a 45-minute drive.  I was impressed by the massive,
well-maintained parks and gardens surrounding the airport.  I was also
impressed by the general cleanliness, the orderliness of the traffic,
the quality of the roads, and the greenery. Coming from a city
government background, I was surprised at how organized Karachi was
throughout the ride.  I also didn’t see many beggars the entire way.  I
had just spent significant amounts of time in two major Indian cities,
Mumbai and Bangalore, as well as several second-tier cities like
Mangalore, and none would compare favorably on maintenance and city
planning, especially when it came to potholes and waste management.
 This was the first surprise; I was expecting that piles of garbage and
dirt would line the roads and beggars would overflow onto the streets.
 Surely there is dirt and poverty in Karachi, but far less than I was
expecting.  Karachi was also less dense and crowded than India’s cities.

My second pleasant surprise was to see
numerous large development projects under way.  I had read about
Pakistan’s sluggish GDP growth and corruption in public works and
foreign aid disbursement.  This may be true, but construction was going
on all over the place: new movie theaters, new malls, new skyscrapers,
new roads, and entire new neighborhoods being built from scratch.  In
this regard it was similar to India and every other part of Asia I had
seen recently: new development and rapid change continues apace,
something we are seeing less of in the West.

 -----------------------

 We were also able to do some things which
may sound more familiar to Americans: bowling at Karachi’s first
bowling alley, intense games of pickup basketball with some local
teenagers at a large public park (these kids could really play),
or passing through massive and well-appointed malls filled with
thousands of happy people of all ages walking around, shopping, or
eating at the food court.  We even attended a grand launch party for
Magnum ice cream bars, featuring many of Pakistan’s A-list actors,
models, and businesspeople.  A friend who is involved in producing
musicals directed an excellent performance at the party, complete with
live band, singing, and dancing.  This troupe, Made for Stage has also produced shows such as the Broadway musical Chicago to critical acclaim with an all-Pakistani cast for the first time in history.

Even the poor areas we visited, such as
the neighborhoods around the Mazar, were filled with families coming out
for a picnic or a stroll, enjoying their weekend leisure time in the
sun.  All I could see were friendly and happy people, including children
with striking features running around.  At no time did I feel the least
bit unsafe anywhere we went, and we definitely went through a mix of
neighborhoods with varying profiles.

 ------------------------------------------

 Lahore is more beautiful overall than
Karachi or any large Indian city I’ve seen.  Serious effort has gone
into keeping the city green and preserving its storied history. 
Historians would have a field day here.  In particular we saw two
stunning historic mosques, the Wazir Khan and the Badshahi,
both of which should be considered treasures not only for Muslims,
Pakistanis, or South Asia, but for all of humanity.  I felt it a crime
that I’d never even heard of either one.  Each of them in different ways
features breath-taking architecture and intricate artwork comparable to
India’s Taj Mahal.  These are must-see sights for any tourist to
Lahore.  The best way to enjoy the vista of the Badshahi mosque is to
have a meal on the rooftop of one of the many superb restaurants on Food
Street next to the mosque compound.  This interesting area was for
hundreds of years an infamous red-light district, made up of a series of
old wooden rowhouses that look like they were lifted straight out of
New Orleans’ Bourbon Street, strangely juxtaposed with one of the
country’s holiest shrines.  From the roof of Cuckoo’s Den restaurant,
we could see all of the massive Badshahi complex along with the
adjoining royal fortress, all while having a 5-star meal of kebabs,
spicy curries in clay pots, and lassi under the stars.  We were
fortunate to have very pleasant whether as well.  This alfresco dining
experience with two good friends encompassed my favorite moments in the
city.

We did much more in Lahore.  We were given a tour of the renowned Aitchison College,
which one of my friends attended.  This boys’ private prep school is
known for its difficult entrance exams, rigorous academic tradition,
illustrious list of alumni since the British founded the school, and its
gorgeous and impeccably maintained 200-acre campus that  puts most
major universities icluding my own Georgetown to shame.  Aitchison has
been considered one of the best prep schools on the subcontinent since
1886.  However, it would have been impossible to get a tour without the
alumni connection because security is very thorough.

Pankaj Mishra, Bloomberg:  (April, 2012)

...I also saw much in this recent visit that did not conform to the
main Western narrative for South Asia -- one in which India is steadily
rising and Pakistan rapidly collapsing.

Born of certain
geopolitical needs and exigencies, this vision was always most useful to
those who have built up India as an investment destination and a
strategic counterweight to China, and who have sought to bribe and
cajole Pakistan’s military-intelligence establishment into the war on
terrorism.

Seen through the narrow lens of the West’s security
and economic interests, the great internal contradictions and tumult
within these two large nation-states disappear. In the Western view, the
credit-fueled consumerism among the Indian middle class appears a much
bigger phenomenon than the extraordinary Maoist uprising in Central
India.
------------
Traveling through Pakistan, I realized how
much my own knowledge of the country -- its problems as well as
prospects -- was partial, defective or simply useless. Certainly,
truisms about the general state of crisis were not hard to corroborate.
Criminal gangs shot rocket-propelled grenades at each other and the
police in Karachi’s Lyari neighborhood. Shiite Hazaras were being
assassinated in Balochistan every day. Street riots broke out in several
places over severe power shortages -- indeed, the one sound that seemed
to unite the country was the groan of diesel generators, helping the
more affluent Pakistanis cope with early summer heat.

In
this eternally air-conditioned Pakistan, meanwhile, there exist fashion
shows, rock bands, literary festivals, internationally prominent
writers, Oscar-winning filmmakers and the bold anchors of a lively new
electronic media. This is the glamorously liberal country upheld by
English-speaking Pakistanis fretting about their national image in the
West (some of them might have been gratified by the runaway success of
Hello magazine’s first Pakistani edition last week).

But much
less conspicuous and more significant, other signs of a society in rapid
socioeconomic and political transition abounded. The elected parliament
is about to complete its five- year term -- a rare event in Pakistan --
and its amendments to the constitution have taken away some if not all
of the near- despotic prerogatives of the president’s office.

Political
parties are scrambling to take advantage of the strengthening
ethno-linguistic movements for provincial autonomy in Punjab and Sindh
provinces. Young men and women, poor as well as upper middle class, have
suddenly buoyed the anti-corruption campaign led by Imran Khan, an
ex-cricketer turned politician.

After radically increasing the
size of the consumerist middle class to 30 million, Pakistan’s formal
economy, which grew only 2.4 percent in 2011, currently presents a
dismal picture. But the informal sector of the economy, which spreads
across rural and urban areas, is creating what the architect and social
scientist Arif Hasan calls Pakistan’s “unplanned revolution.” Karachi,
where a mall of Dubai-grossness recently erupted near the city’s main
beach, now boasts “a first world economy and sociology, but with a third
world wage and political structure.”

Even in Lyari, Karachi’s
diseased old heart, where young gangsters with Kalashnikovs lurked in
the alleys, billboards vended quick proficiency in information
technology and the English language. Everywhere, in the Salt Range in
northwestern Punjab as well as the long corridor between Lahore and
Islamabad, were gated housing colonies, private colleges, fast- food
restaurants and other markers of Pakistan’s breakneck
suburbanization....

Hindol Sengupta, The Hindu: (May, 2010)

Add this bookstore to the list of India-Pakistan rivalry. A bookstore so
big that it is actually called a bank. The book store to beat all
bookstores in the subcontinent, I have found books I have never seen
anywhere in India at the three-storeyed Saeed Book Bank in leafy
Islamabad. The collection is diverse, unique and with a special focus on
foreign policy and subcontinental politics (I wonder why?), this
bookstore is far more satisfying than any of the magazine-laden
monstrosities I seem to keep trotting into in India. ...

Yes,
that's right. The meat. There always, always seems to be meat in every
meal, everywhere in Pakistan. Every where you go, everyone you know is
eating meat. From India, with its profusion of vegetarian food, it seems
like a glimpse of the other world. The bazaars of Lahore are full of
meat of every type and form and shape and size and in Karachi, I have
eaten some of the tastiest rolls ever. For a Bengali committed to his
non-vegetarianism, this is paradise regained. Also, the quality of meat
always seems better, fresher, fatter, more succulent, more seductive,
and somehow more tantalizingly carnal in Pakistan. ....

Let me
tell you that there is no better leather footwear than in Pakistan. I
bought a pair of blue calf leather belt-ons from Karachi two years ago
and I wear them almost everyday and not a dent or scratch! Not even the
slightest tear. They are by far the best footwear I have ever bought and
certainly the most comfortable. Indian leather is absolutely no match
for the sheer quality and handcraftsmanship of Pakistani leather wear.

Yes.
Yes, you read right. The roads. I used to live in Mumbai and now I live
in Delhi and, yes, I think good roads are a great, mammoth, gargantuan
luxury! Face it, when did you last see a good road in India? Like a
really smooth road. Drivable, wide, nicely built and long, yawning,
stretching so far that you want zip on till eternity and loosen the
gears and let the car fly. A road without squeeze or bump or gaping
holes that pop up like blood-dripping kitchen knives in Ramsay Brothers
films. When did you last see such roads? Pakistan is full of such roads.
Driving on the motorway between Islamabad and Lahore, I thought of the
Indian politician who ruled a notorious —, one could almost say
viciously — potholed state and spoke of turning the roads so smooth that
they would resemble the cheeks of Hema Malini. They remained as dented
as the face of Frankenstein's monster. And here, in Pakistan, I was
travelling on roads that — well, how can one now avoid this? — were as
smooth as Hema Malini's cheeks! Pakistani roads are broad and smooth and
almost entirely, magically, pot hole free. How do they do it; this
country that is ostensibly so far behind in economic growth compared to
India? But they do and one of my most delightful experiences in Pakistan
has been travelling on its fabulous roads. No wonder the country is
littered with SUVs — Pakistan has the roads for such cars! Even in tiny
Bajaur in the North West frontier province, hard hit by the Taliban, and
a little more than a frontier post, the roads were smoother than many I
know in India. Even Bajaur has a higher road density than India! If
there is one thing we should learn from the Pakistanis, it is how to
build roads. And oh, another thing, no one throws beer bottles or trash
on the highways and motorways.

Madhulika Sikka, NPR News: (May, 2010)

This may be hard to believe, but the first thing that crosses your
mind when you drive into Islamabad is suburban Virginia — its wide
roads, modern buildings, cleanliness and orderliness is a complete
contrast to the hustle and bustle of the ancient city of Lahore, some
220 miles east on the Grand Trunk Road.

Islamabad
is laid out in a grid with numbered avenues running north to south. The
streets are tree lined and flowers abound among the vast open stretches
of green space.

Perhaps one of the
most beautiful spots is the Margallah Hills National Park. Drive up the
winding road on the northern edge of town to the scenic view points and
you'll see the broad planned city stretch before you.
It's
a Sunday afternoon and you could be in any park in any city in the
world. Families are out for a stroll and picnicking on park benches.
There's a popcorn vendor and an ice cream seller. Kids are playing on a
big inflatable slide. Peacocks strut their full plumage as people are
busily clicking away on their cellphone cameras. Lively music permeates
the air as souvenir sellers are hawking their wares. Off one of the side
paths I notice a young couple lunching at a bench, a respectable
distance apart from each other but clearly wanting to be alone.

So what's it like here? It's pretty much like everywhere else. On a
quiet Sunday afternoon people are out with their families, relaxing and
enjoying themselves, taking a break from the stresses and strains of
daily life. For all of us this is an image of Pakistan worth
remembering. I certainly will.

 

Yoginder Sikand, Countercurrents.org : (June, 2008)

Islamabad is surely the most well-organized,picturesque and endearing
city in all of South Asia. Few Indians would, however, know this, or, if
they did, would admit it. After all, the Indian media never highlights
anything positive about Pakistan, because for it only 'bad' news about
the country appears to be considered 'newsworthy'. That realization hit
me as a rude shock the moment I stepped out of the plane and entered
Islamabad's plush International Airport, easily far more efficient,
modern and better maintained than any of its counterparts in India. And
right through my week-long stay in the city, I could not help comparing
Islamabad favorably with every other South Asian city that I have
visited. That week in Islamabad consisted essentially of a long string
of pleasant surprises, for I had expected Islamabad to be everything
that the Indian media so uncharitably and erroneously depicts Pakistan
as. The immigration counter was staffed by a smart young woman, whose
endearing cheerfulness was a refreshing contrast to the grave, somber
and unwelcoming looks that one is generally met with at immigration
counters across the world that make visitors to a new country feel
instantly unwelcome.

Here's a Pakistan Pictorial:
Find more photos like this on PakAlumni Worldwide: The Global Social Network

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Foreign Visitors to Pakistan Pleasantly Surprised

Pakistan's Infrastructure and M2 Motorway

Educational Attainment in India and Pakistan

India Pakistan Comparison 2011

Resilient Pakistan Defies Doomsayers

What Pakistan Did Right

Branchless Banking Responds to Pakistan Floods

Pakistan's Rural Economy Recovering

Pakistan's Growing Middle Class

Pakistan is Too Big to Fail

[Riaz Haq]

Here's The Hindu on Shobha De's visit to Islamabad:

Shobhaa De, author and columnist, said here on Friday that she had not encountered even a moment of hostility in Pakistan. It was all hospitality and no hostility, she added.

Ms. De is here to attend the second Islamabad Literature Festival organised by the Oxford University Press.The three-day festival, which will showcase some of the best writers in Pakistan, has Ms. De, Ritu Menon, writer and publisher, and a group performing Dastangoi, an Urdu storytelling art form, from India.

Ms. De had attended literature festivals in Karachi and Lahore, but this is her first visit to Islamabad. To start with, she said she had been keen on visiting the capital since it was a city which was neither here nor there. An Indian diplomat had told her it was like a small European city, but at first glance, it seemed more like Chandigarh.

She arrived to a warm welcome, and hoped that every city in Pakistan would have a literary festival.

If it had not been for the festival, she would not have been able to visit here. It was an important moment for her. The festivals she had attended in Pakistan were liberal, progressive and relaxed, and stood for all that was good for the region.

Opening the festival, Zehra Nigah, writer, said it was important for people to read and enjoy books.

She told The Hindu that it was important to hold such festivals and people were enjoying them despite the prevailing conditions.

Aamer Hussain, writer, and Asif Farrukhi, festival organiser, spoke.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/south-asia/it-is-all-hos...

[Riaz Haq]

PRI story on Modi and Pakistan:

Growing up in India, I'd sometimes drop my cricket bat in the middle of the game and say to my friends, "I'll be right back. Going to Pakistan."

None of them would raise an eyebrow. They knew I meant I was off to the bathroom.

I grew up with strong feelings about Pakistan. It was my enemy.

My friends and I wished the worst things for Pakistan, and disliked losing to them — on the battlefield, or the cricket field.

Every time a terrorist attack happened in India, we blamed it on Pakistan and wished our prime minister would declare war.

I thought that's how every Indian should feel; the more you hated Pakistan, the more patriotic you were.

Then, 10 years ago, I moved to the United States, and, for the first time in my life, I met a person from Pakistan. Then I met another Pakistani. And then, another.

We spoke the same language, ate the same food, told the same jokes and felt passionate about the same sport. We had so many things in common that I often forgot we were not from the same country.

Right now, a general election is taking place in India. Narendra Modi, the candidate for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is expected to become the next prime minster. He’s the chief minister of Gujarat, the northwestern state bordering Pakistan.

Modi is controversial. In 2005, he was denied a US visa because of his alleged role in the Gujurat riots in 2002, where about 1,000 people died, most of them Muslim.

Some of my friends from Pakistan express concern about Modi and they've asked me what I think of him.

In my previous life, I might have voted for Modi.

But now, he makes me nervous.

http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-05-05/i-used-think-pakistan-my-enem...

[Riaz Haq]

“Aap India se hai? Are you Indian? That makes you our guest. We can’t take any money from you!”

It was my fourth and last day in Islamabad, and this reaction from a handicrafts shop salesman didn’t surprise me anymore. I’d been getting it from the first day, this outpouring of warmth and generosity from Pakistanis the moment I mentioned India, and it never failed to charm me.

When I flew from Mumbai to Islamabad earlier this month, I was excited about finally getting a glimpse of India’s estranged midnight twin, about meeting the people who are ‘just like us’ but still the perpetual ‘other’.

I was preparing for four days of spotting similarities and differences, but the only striking difference I was able to discern was one that left me with a twinge of shame: all the Pakistanis I encountered love Indians, but most Indians don't return the love.

You must have some tea
I was in Islamabad for an International Women’s Empowerment conference organised by the American Embassy in Pakistan, and my precious single-city visa was valid for just seven days.

---

First, it came from the otherwise sombre immigration officials at Islamabad’s Benazir Bhutto airport where we landed: a lady officer, while scanning our documents, grinned mischievously at us and said, “India waale toh suspicious hote hai” – Indians are objects of suspicion, right?

We grinned back and proceeded for the airport police verification for foreigners, where the official took a break from an argument with another man to say, “You are from India? You must have some tea!”

One Potato, Two Potato
Outside our hotel, we had time to grab a quick lunch before the conference began, and the only restaurant open on a Friday afternoon in Jinnah Market was OPTP – One Potato Two Potato – serving American fast food. We had been dreaming of kebabs and biryani, but for now, burgers and fries it had to be.

I still hadn’t had time for foreign exchange, so Ashwaq – my fellow Indian traveller – offered to pay for lunch with the Pakistani rupees that she had acquired from an agent in Delhi. But the cashier wouldn’t take them. “These are outdated notes, madam,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. "They are no longer valid."

We pleaded, and after a minute of thumb-twiddling, he double-checked with a friend and came back with the same response: the notes couldn’t be accepted any more.

Tired and hungry, we cursed the dubious Delhi agent – and then it began.

“Delhi? Are you from India?” the cashier said. “Well, it’s okay. I’ll take the old notes. You are our guests.”

He insisted, and the burgers and fries, and the free cheese dips he threw in didn’t taste so American any more.

---

On my third night, while gorging on meaty street food at the Melody Food Park, this dildaari moved me to do something I never imagined I would: I drank a whole cup of tea, a beverage I dislike almost as much as coffee (I’m weird, I know).

For journalists, sharing chai with sources is often the smoothest way to break the ice and win trust, but I always wriggle out of the ritual by claiming I’m allergic to tea.

But this tea – a steaming cup of Peshawari kahwa – was a treat from a humble vendour of chappal kebabs, who couldn’t contain his excitement when he found out I was Indian.

“I’ve always wanted to go to India! You have to let us show you our hospitality!” he said, and served us a complimentary kebab along with kahwa.

I’m still no fan of any kind of tea, but that cup definitely left me warm inside.

And Indians?
So, what answer did I have to the one question that so many hospitable Pakistanis in Isloo, as they call Islamabad, asked of me so eagerly, both in and outside the conference?

The question would typically come after heartfelt conversations about India, Pakistan, Kashmir and the politics that separates us:

“We really love Indians – after all, we’re basically the same people. Do Indians feel the same way about us?”

http://www.dawn.com/news/1172832/

http://scroll.in/article/713950/Ordinary-Pakistanis-seem-to-love-In...

[Riaz Haq]

An #Indian's Act of #Sedition: "#Pakistanis are the most gracious people in the world". #India #Pakistan #Modi #BJP
http://www.dawn.com/news/1280722

A warm welcome
Our flight landed in Lahore, and our friends drove us from the airport to their home in Islamabad. I noticed that my mother was initially a little tense. Maybe it was memories of the violence of her exile; maybe it was just the idea that this was now a foreign land, and for many in India the enemy land.

I watched my mother gradually relax on the road journey to Islamabad, as she delighted in hearing my friends and the car driver speak the Punjabi of her childhood, and as she watched the altered landscape of her journey. Islamabad, of course, did not exist when she lived in the Punjab of her days.

In Islamabad, my friends invited to their homes many of their associates with their parents. They organised evenings of Punjabi poetry and music, which my parents relished. Our friends drove us to Murree, the hill-station in which my mother spent many pleasant summers as a child.

My mother had just one more request. Could she go to see the colony in Rawalpindi where she was born and spent her childhood in? My father also wanted to visit his college, the famous Gordon College in Rawalpindi.

A homecoming
My mother recalled that the name of the residential colony in which she lived as a child was called Gawal Mandi. My friends knew it well; it was now an upmarket upper middle-class enclave.

When we reached there, my mother tried to locate the house of her childhood. It seemed impossible. Everything was new: most of the old houses had been rebuilt and opulent new structures had come up in their place.

She located the building that had housed their gurudwara. It had now been converted into a health centre. But we had almost despaired of actually finding her childhood house. We doubted if it was even standing all these years later.

We were leaving when suddenly my mother pointed to the filigree work on the balconies of one of the old houses. My mother said: “I remember it because my father was very proud of the designs. He said there was none like it in the neighbourhood."

Taking a chance, we knocked tentatively on the door of the house. A middle-aged man opened it, and asked us who we wanted to meet.

My mother said apologetically, “We are so sorry to trouble you, and intrude suddenly in this way. But I lived as a child in Gawal Mandi, before Partition, when we had to leave for India. I think this maybe was our home.”

The house owner’s response was spontaneous and immediate.

"Mataji, why do you say that this was your home? It continues to be your home even today. You are most welcome.”
And he led us all in.

Before long, my mother confirmed that this was indeed her childhood home. She went from room to room, and then to the terrace, almost in a trance, recalling all the while fragments of her childhood memories in various corners of this house.

For months after we returned to Delhi, she would tell me that recollections of the house returned to her in her dreams.

Take a look: Why my heart said Pakistan Zindabad!

Half an hour later, we thanked the house-owners and said that we would be on our way. But they would not hear of it.

We were told: “You have come to your childhood home, then how can we let you go without you having a meal with us here?”

They overruled all our protestations, and lunch was prepared for around eight members of our party, including not just my family but also our Pakistani hosts. Only when they were sure that we had eaten our fill, and more, did they allow us to leave.

[Riaz Haq]

#India writer Yoginder Sikand says in his book "Beyond the Border" that he was taught to hate #Pakistan at age 4. https://books.google.com/books?id=xoJICgAAQBAJ&pg=PT6&dq=Be... …

Indian writer Yoginder Sikand in his book "Beyond the Border":

When I was only four years old and we were living in Calcutta (in 1971)...it was clear that "Pakistan" was something that I was meant to hate and fear, though I had not the faintest idea where and what that dreaded monster (Pakistan) was.

What I heard and read about the two countries (India and Pakistan)--at school, on television and over radio, in the newspapers and from relatives and friends--only served to reinforce negative images of Pakistan, a country inhabited by people I necessarily had dread and even to define myself against. Pakistan and myself were equated as one while India and the Hindus were treated as synonymous. The two countries, as well as the two communities were said to be absolutely irreconcilable. To be Indian necessarily meant, it seemed to be uncompromisingly anti-Pakistani. To question this assumption, to entertain any thought other than the standard line about Pakistan and its people, was tantamount to treason.

https://books.google.com/books?id=xoJICgAAQBAJ&pg=PT6&dq=Be...

[Riaz Haq]

#Indian Author/Activist Harsh Mandar: "I have travelled to many countries in the world in the sixty years of my life. I have never encountered a people as gracious as those in #Pakistan" https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/book-extract/never-encountered-...
.

Taking a chance, we knocked tentatively at the door of the house. A middle-aged man opened the latch, and asked us who we wanted to meet. My mother said apologetically, ‘We are so sorry to trouble you, and intrude suddenly in this way. But I lived as a child in Gawal Mandi, before Partition, when we had to leave for India. I think this maybe was our home.’

The house-owner’s response was spontaneous and immediate. ‘Mataji, why do you say that this was your home? It continues to be your home even today. You are most welcome’. And he led us all in. Before long, my mother confirmed that this was indeed her childhood home. She went from room to room, and then to the terrace, almost in a trance, recalling all the while fragments of her childhood memories in various corners of this house.

For months after we returned to Delhi, she would tell me that recollections of the house returned to her in her dreams.

Half an hour later, we thanked the house-owners and said that we would be on our way. But they would not hear of it. ‘You have come to your childhood home, then how can we let you go without you having a meal with us here?’ They overruled all our protestations, and lunch was prepared for around eight members of our party, including not just my family but also our Pakistani hosts. Only when they were sure that we had eaten our fill, and more, did they allow us to leave.

After we returned to India, news of our adventure spread quickly among family and friends. The next year, my mother-in-law, a wheel-chair user, requested that we take her also to Pakistan to visit her childhood home, this time in Gujranwala.

Given the joys of my parents’ successful visit, I was more confident. But then many elderly aunts and an elderly uncle joined the trip, and in the end my wife and I were accompanying six older people to Pakistan.

Our experience this time was very similar to a year earlier. The owner of their old ancestral haveli in their Gujranwala village took my mother-in-law around the sprawling property on her wheel-chair, and after we had eaten with them asked her, ‘Would you not like to check out your farmlands?’

On both visits, wherever my wife visited shops, for clothes, footwear or handicrafts, if the shopkeepers recognised her to be Indian, they would invariably insist on a hefty concession on the price. ‘You are our guests’, they would say. ‘How can we make a profit from our guests?’

As news of these visits travelled further, my associates from an NGO Ashagram for the care and rights of persons living with leprosy in a small town Barwani in Madhya Pradesh—with which I had a long association since its founding—demanded that I organise a visit for them also to Pakistan.

Once again, the Pakistani High Commission granted to them visas and they were on their way. There was only one catch, and this was that all of them were vegetarian. They enjoyed greatly the week they spent in Pakistan, except for the food.

Every night they would set out looking for a wayside shop to buy fruit juice. Each night they found a new shop, and each night without exception, the shopkeeper refused to accept any money for the fruit juice.

‘We will not charge money from our guests from India,’ they would say each time. This happened for a full seven days.

I have travelled to many countries in the world in the sixty years of my life. I have never encountered a people as gracious as those in Pakistan.

This declaration is my latest act of sedition.

[Riaz Haq]

A passage to #Pakistan by @dhume: #Indians may have a distorted view of their neighbor, but Pakistanis don’t quite get #India either. #Delhi’s Pakistan policy is a disaster..it's based on a combination of hubris and hatred that are the opposite of realism https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-edit-page/a-passage-t...

Cliches about the warmth of Pakistani hospitality are true. But you can also encounter kindness among ordinary Pakistanis that has nothing to do with a culture of looking after your guests. At the Pakistan International Airlines counter in Lahore, a young man helpfully suggests that i check my carry-on bag at the gate to avoid paying for excess baggage. In the Indian imagination, particularly on the Hindu Right, Pakistan brings to mind only fanaticism and violence. But a visitor can experience it instead as a land of many small kindnesses.

The Indian view of Pakistan is increasingly shaped by a kind of national hysteria, an inability to view the country dispassionately as a geographical space that happens to be inhabited by a kindred people whose ancestors were Indians. In general, educated Pakistanis are less ignorant about India than their Indian counterparts are about Pakistan. (They are alarmingly up-to-date on Bollywood gossip.) But here too distortions abound. For Pakistanis, India is north India. Indian politics is the politics of the Hindi heartland.

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On television, Indians are fed a diet of jingoism that is detached from reality. For instance, while Pakistan’s global influence may have declined precipitously – in large measure because of its sclerotic economy – the idea that India can isolate a nuclear-armed nation with more than 200-million people is preposterous. As things stand, Pakistan enjoys a strong relationship with China, has largely repaired its once strained relations with America, and is open to overtures from Russia.

Perhaps one day the politicians who run India and the generals who run Pakistan will feel secure enough to allow Indians and Pakistanis to visit each other freely and experience each other’s countries for themselves. Until such contact becomes commonplace, the odds of South Asia becoming more like Southeast Asia – united by economics rather than divided by politics – remain vanishingly slim.

[Riaz Haq]

An Indian CEO shared a beautiful story from her Harvard days.


https://www.indiatoday.in/trending-news/story/indian-woman-s-story-...


The post gives a description of a blooming friendship between Early Steps Academy CEO and her Pakistani friend.
She shared a picture with her Pakistani friend.
An endearing post shared by the CEO of Early Steps Academy has won the hearts of netizens. The LinkedIn post by Sneha Biswas gave the perfect example of friendship that broke all barriers. Biswas wrote about one of her classmates from Harvard Business School who happened to be a Pakistani citizen. The beautiful story of friendship received a thumbs up from people.

The post gave a detailed description of the blooming friendship between Biswas and her friend from Pakistan. “Growing up in a small town in India, my knowledge about Pakistan was limited to cricket, history books and the media. All revolving around rivalry and hatred. Decades later I met this girl. She is from Islamabad, Pakistan. I met her on my Day 1 at Harvard Business School. It took us 5 seconds to like each other and by the end of first semester she became one of my closest friends on campus,” Biswas wrote.


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Growing up in a small town in India, my knowledge about Pakistan was limited to cricket, history books and the media. All revolving around rivalry and hatred.

Decades later I met this girl. She is from Islamabad, Pakistan. I met her on my Day 1 at Harvard Business School . It took us 5 seconds to like each other and by the end of first semester she became one of my closest friends on campus.

Over multiple chais, biryanis, financial models and case study preps, we got to know each other. Her stories of growing up in a conversative Pakistani backdrop, but blessed with supportive parents who gave her and her younger sister the courage to break the norms and chase their dreams, resonated with me. Her stories of fearless ambitions and bold choices inspired me.

I realized that while pride for your individual nations stand strong, your love for people transcends geographies and boundaries. People, fundamentally, are similar everywhere. Boundaries, borders and spaces are built by humans, and while it all might make sense to the head, the heart often fails to understand them.

Look at us on the famous flag day at #harvard - flaunting our flags and smiling away at the joy of “breaking barriers” - not just literally between India and Pakistan, but also for the countless little girls from India and Pakistan who are scared to shoot for the stars.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:69626110993345...

[Riaz Haq]

India woman's post on Pakistani friend wins hearts on social media
Published

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-62501687

An Indian woman's post about her friendship with a Pakistani classmate is being praised on social media.

The two are students at Harvard Business School, and the post shows them holding the national flag of their respective countries.

Sneha Biswas wrote that her friendship with a Pakistani student broke the stereotypes she knew about the neighbouring country.

The two nations have shared hostile relations for decades.

India has banned Pakistani artists and cricketers from performing and playing in India. Pakistan has banned Bollywood films.

Celebrating the sentiment of unity depicted in the post, one user commented "we built walls between each other and thus it's up to us to bring it down." Another user hoped that the two women would "share a lifelong friendship that may bring changes across the borders for girls on both sides".

Ms Biswas, who is also an entrepreneur, shared the post about her friendship with her Pakistani classmate on LinkedIn. She did not name her friend.

In the post, she said that growing up in a small town, her knowledge about Pakistan and its people was limited. She got all her information through books and media, which often espoused narratives of hatred and rivalry.

She met her friend, who is from Islamabad, on her first day at Harvard and the two have developed a close friendship since then.

Over many chats enjoyed with tea and biryani (a flavourful rice dish), she discovered her friend's similar background - that of growing up in a "conservative Pakistani backdrop" but having family that supported her dreams.

"I realised that while pride for your individual nations stand strong, your love for people transcends geographies and boundaries," wrote Ms Biswas.

Her post championed unity between the people, saying "boundaries, borders and spaces are built by humans." She talked about "breaking barriers" not just between the two countries, but also for little girls from India and Pakistan who are "scared to shoot for the stars."

The post has received social media attention in the week running up to India's and Pakistan's independence anniversaries, celebrated on 15 and 14 August respectively. Both nations' independence is also linked to the Partition in 1947, which led to the division of India into India and Pakistan. The partition was one of the bloodiest events in history, and one that experts say laid the seeds of animosity between the two nations.

[Riaz Haq]

PAKISTAN, THROUGH INDIAN EYES

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2389418/pakistan-through-indian-eyes

Ms. Nitupola Sharma writes an account of her first encounter with a Pakistani and her visit to Pakistan

Arriving at my friend’s home, I could sleep only for an hour, totally excited at the prospect of seeing my old friends and exploring the country that I had thought I would never be able to see in my lifetime. Saad had a beautiful, spacious bungalow in DHA. At breakfast, Saad shared a humorous story of how his friends had cautioned him against having me, an Indian, stay in his house in a defence housing colony. Filled with worry, he had been wondering what to do as I was already planned to arrive in a day. He received a call from an unknown number. Saad nearly had a heart attack when the voice on the other side asked if he was Saad Iqbal, and on confirmation asked him if he was having an Indian visitor. Barely being able to squeak out a yes, Saad waited with bated breath as to what would come next. He was pleasantly surprised when the voice introduced himself as a relative of the ambassador, and that he would like to have all of us join him for dinner in Islamabad. This trip of mine was getting more and more eventful and memorable by the minute.

The afternoon found us meeting another ex-colleague, Nauman, and going together as a huge group of mischievous children and adults to the walled city of Lahore. Children made so much of a din that it was impossible for the adults to have any sort of a conversation. I felt a familiarity with one part of the city with its high walls, wide clean roads, and bungalows with its similarity to Gurgaon. Interior Lahore was more like Old Delhi with its abundant share of historical relics and cosy small outlets selling curios, antiques and artifacts, and snack sellers competing in their persuasive methods to entice you to stop by their colourfully decorated stalls.

I fell in love with Cooco’s Den with its beautiful stained-glass windows, narrow dark and dingy spiral steps, abundance of antiques, its secretive air, its gorgeous paintings, and open veranda giving you an amazing view of the walled city. The narrow building seemed to be bursting with stories and secrets of forbidden romances, having been the house of a lady infamous for her different lifestyle in a conservative society. Her son had converted their home into a restaurant. Soulful music accompanied our food, an experience that I will never forget. Never have I ever tasted karahi chicken that was so tasty that Ryan practically scraped off the handi and could not stop gushing about it.

The sight of the Badshahi Masjid, sharing its walls with the Ranjit Singh Gurudwara, and the Shahi Qila with the Minar-e-Pakistan standing guard in the front like a torch to these three precious historical treasures, was an exceptional experience worth its weight in gold. Shahi Qila with its paintings framed in precious stones, sadly most of them scrapped out. There is a huge step that was created for elephants to carry their royal riders directly inside the fort.

Inside the Badshahi Masjid, children enjoyed themselves the most as they ran around in the open area. The sight of the normally shy and self-conscious Ryan lying down in abandon on the carpet, busy with his new cell phone, completely oblivious of his surroundings, was a new sight to me.