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.