BORN AGAIN, PAKISTAN

Story: Anjita Roychaudhury
23rd March 2015

It's no big secret, I have always had a deep fascination for Pakistan, its beautiful people, their fabled mehman nawazi, their adab, lihaaz, their elegance, their silken dialect, their poetry, their incredibly melancholic voices that lingered in this part of the subcontinent longer, their TV serials which I got an ample dose of, growing up with some very happy aunts who loved Pak serials...


So, yes I was in love with Dr. Irfan at 16 (not Dr. Ahmer mind you) ...Yes, I am in love with Fawad Khan and yes, I never got over Bilal Maqsood (we are talking post 16 me here). But it's not just these examples of good looks, talent, excellence in their culture & music that I have sought out or loved from the other side. There is so much to learn, so much to see, so much to share...and more's the pity, that it gets tougher every passing year to dream of that collective time spent together.

 

I honestly think, we are both a deeply misunderstood and madly in love people. For there can't be so much hate if there isn't an abyss full of love deep down there. It couldn't have hurt them any less to be slit down the middle and handed out a raw deal in the name of a nation or Qaum.


They must have stories to tell, of good times and good people, hyms and tales, songs and lore... just like the ones I heard during my university thesis. So much pain, so many smiles doused in happy tears and such goodwill, all buried under one godforsaken line. A line which we haven't stopped fighting over since. We must be crazy to want the same things and not want to share it.


Not that that's going to happen anytime soon. We are such a learned democratic lot. We redistribute and redivide hatred. Every single 5 year term.


Nothing I write here or say ever, on or off line will change any hardline or hard heart into believing that the whole point, the whole axiom of a two nation theory stood exhausted the moment the British left. This was a pie that didnt need cutting. If only the heads who baked it hadn't swollen up like pumpkins. It was not a partition of a country, it was punishment for two states, Punjab and Bengal that had dared the Raj and the two lay now like severed arms and bleeding arteries, as the nations formed with its new nationalities stared horrified.


Funny isn't it...the Gora left, we followed them in our white loyalty and once we reached the shores of England we the browns managed to live mostly in peace together, like newfound brothers in British arms. Oxford degrees et al.

Now back home, our ministers ensured that we forgot the Brits had left, and we forgot all about the good times and the brotherhood. I supposed we had little choice. The collective pain was too great. All that remained and was reminded hereof, by each state player and its loud orators constantly, through tales and trauma, were the brutal scars of one of the worst managed human movements in history. And today in hindsight, like every other armchair socialist, I can chose to blame every single person who permitted it to happen.

As if we could have changed anything about it. As if we can change anything about it today, with our new fangled technology and media and social network. Such catalysts we turned out to be! Pah. Fact is...we were simply not ready to be independent, even lesser to be two nations. But we are now, we are ready to behave like two mature nation states. But we won't. It defies all logic, but we simply won't. And there will be wars, there will be new lines to argue about, new glaciers to defend and new walls to build. So much work to do...so little time.



I don't even know why a Pakistan day should prompt me to pen something which won't change anything. But writing helps. It masks the futility, which is not lost on me, never was...we will swear by their singers, they will swear by our films, we will haggle over the umpire's call in an ODI and support them when they beat australia, then we go right back to our militant ways. Such evolution...mind numbing!


 

So cheers to you Pakistan, on a day when you shall hopefully rise from your tragedies and hurrahs and go back in time and find in your hearts the kindness that our relationship needs. Today more than ever. Peace be upon you. Celebrate. It is your day after all.

SHAME ON YOU WOMAN.

Story: Anjita Roychaudhury

15th March 2015

How do you plan to save a child from her father, how to save a woman from a passerby, how to save a female passenger from a bus conductor, how to save a single woman from her own date, how do you caution the little girl on the evils of talking to the veggie vendor, how to tell a child that the school cleaner could be her rapist? when does she feel happy smiling at a boy and not squirming after? how does one end sickness of this magnitude? what sexual imagery of the woman do we snuff out? In her stereotype TV commercial underwear? in her 13 month old infant diapers? or in her silk sari? most likely the one in her shorts!

So which one does the man spare, when he isn't hunting? what image is he looking to molest? Maybe we ought to start by teaching these tiny unaware unsuspecting babies to stop breathing? Because we are a hunted lot now. We are hunted for being.

We are a sick people and the sooner we stood up and did what Suzette was able to, to take pride in being the victim of a sexual horror, and not just be a statistic, then maybe, just maybe we have the one chance of killing this mindless beast, once & for all. Because perversion has no end, it mutates to a deeper darker version of its own self. And our system breeds it. endlessly. with or without the BBC word of caution.

We need to monitor our children, very closely, our boys even closer still, because the massive percentage of this rotten Indian males (i will not be apologising to any of my many men friends, because like us, its your gender, you end up taking a collective fall for it, like we do for ours, we get raped for being women, so you get to share the blame with the wondermen on unending sexprowls) is not going to have a change of heart and he wont understand this trauma or pain or death. He simply won't. But he can be taught. trained to feel pain and trauma & fear death.

This wont happen without a massive surge, an precedented cleansing, a violent pent up rage from nearly 50% of this country's population that just doesn't react much to brutality of this order. It is our fault...let's face it. We let this happen to us. We are weak enough to let this pass, year on year, election after election, we are not even on any serious manifesto, we exist without becoming relevant to state machinery and political haggling and also to our male counterparts. We like to blame it on the Indian DNA (which is just such a ridiculous idea) and every morning's paper is making me realise that we are all just scared little escapists. We will write and comment and chat while endless little children and women will bear this brunt of male angst and power tripping somewhere. Or perhaps we will lynch them.

The system won't do it, and we are too disunited to bother as a collective unit of victims. And yes, we all are victims, because I dare ask here how many of us who have ever boarded a bus, plane, auto, train, rickshaw have not been physically, mentally, verbally spared the abuse, in small significant doses, as we grew up? It didnt just happen to someone I know, it happened to everyone i know. So lets keep pretending it never happened. That's what's sick about us, not the men, us. We have never fought back! Ever. Because we chose to forget the disgust, the sheer vomit inducing sensation that gripped us when we felt the look, touch, words, a song, a pinch, the squeeze of hands. We deserve this image. And sadly some of our guiltless men will pay the price, even if they are harmless gentle souls. Too bad.

But I think it's time this need for change gained a critical mass and we stopped voyeuring out on some outraged news anchors verbal diarrhéa every night and tuck ourselves into this *never never land* again. We need to teach our girls to fight, physically, morally, verbally, and loudly. Take pride that you survived and you fought. Take pride that some man had the courage to help you fight, or some woman maybe gathered her stregth to fight with you, but fight you must. You could get hurt but learn to fight back. I intend to, with or without any support. Because there must be a day when it all stops. And if you want to be a part of this fight, do it. Dont depend on any wall, or call or bandh or march to get the courage. You have to find it in you to fight this alone. Suzette did. Nirbhaya did. This child probably is still fighting to live in this god forsaken hospital.

Let's stop being hunted for being who we are.