Open up your mind and your potential reaches infinity…

Archive for the ‘Published’ Category

Daring to cross the love border


Published in Aman Ki Asha, The News on January 24, 2012.

Ilmana Fasih shares some stories of building cross-border bridges through the social media

A world without borders was my childhood dream. The desperation and the need for this dream to realise, came out in the open when I embarked on my ‘pyar border paar’ journey, after deciding to tie the knot across the border. I’ve been on two decades of a topsy-turvy ride riddled with visa travails, with the hope-hopelessness cycle going round in vicious circles. Not had I ever dreamt in my wildest of dreams that my hope for a borderless world could be realised in my lifetime. By a ‘borderless’ world, I mean erasing psychological rather than physical borders.

Perhaps on ground it still remains a dream, but on the virtual terrain it has turned into a reality, with the booming world of social media, especially twitter. It is a visa free, passport free utopia where no one is asked their colour, creed or credentials.
It does not take long for one to get addicted to this borderless terrain. The most fascinating thing for me is to see Indo-Pak friendships burgeoning through social media. Thanks to this factor, we can all be a family beyond borders and beliefs, tied with passions common on both sides of the Indo-Pak border.


Indians and Pakistanis wish each other on Eid and Diwali via Twitter and Facebook, and send virtual firecrackers, mithai and biryani across the border.
The #shair hashtag which ‘trended’ on twitter some time back merits a mention. Every day, it attracts Urdu poetry loving twitterati in India and Pakistan. As Rana Safvi , who started this trend, begins to tweet the topic or the poet of the day, other #shair fans start to contribute their tweets with unmatched enthusiasm. So common is the passion for #shair on both sides, that it is almost impossible to identify which side of the border the tweep belongs to.
Rana tweets: “Twitter ne nikamma ker dia, warna aadmi hum bhi aadmi the kaam ke.” #shair
Comes the reply: “140 characters mein baat ker lete hain, DP to DP borderpaar, mulaqat samajh lete hain.
Political differences and arguments also emerge on twitter, but more than anger, what trumps are the vibes of friendship and harmony. The same thrill is felt on facebook too, with some limitations.
Some time back I was approached by two sets of people keen to tell their story of cross-border friendship developed through social media.
One was Ram, a boy in his mid twenties, from West Bengal, India who became friends with Maria, a girl in Punjab, Pakistan through facebook. As their friendship led to a better understanding and respect for each other’s cultures and beliefs, the vibes spilled over to thaw any cold feelings that their families had for the other side. When Ram’s father fell ill and was admitted to hospital, Maria’s mother and sister prayed for his recovery. He recovered, and Ram’s family attributed the recovery to Maria’s family’s prayers (duas).
Now, as Maria is about to be married, Ram’s family is sending her a present as a token of their friendship and gratitude for her family’s prayers. Ram explained that their families had no links to anyone the other side, and hence had no other reason to be warm, but for their friendship.
Maria and Ram have vowed to keep up their friendship even getting married to their respective spouses, and one day, when they can obtain visas, they hope to meet and ensure that any children they have are able to meet each other.


The second story is that of a love-struck couple who prefers to keep their identity and respective nationalities confidential. They contacted me with a request that I should intervene, (having gone through a similar ordeal), and convince the girl’s parents that tying a knot across the border can work out.
Like many others, they ‘met’ through an incidental chat on twitter some six months ago. They then added each other as friends on facebook. The exchange of pictures and other information led them to develop a better understanding of each other, until they reached a point when they decided they needed to share their lives. Both are in their early or mid twenties, and feel they are mature enough to embark on this journey.
The hope and enthusiasm that they had attached to my help made it hard for me to explain that I would prefer to stay away, and that they needed to deal with the situation themselves. Life is as such a struggle, and with a cross-border union, it gets tougher. Hence, let this be the first hurdle they need to cross together, before embarking on the real lifelong journey.
The couple cited the Shoaib Akhtar-Sania Mirza marriage as an example, but the girl’s parents pointed out that they were ordinary people, not stars. Hence they chose me, an ordinary Indian woman married to an ordinary Pakistani man to plead their case.
With this borderless world of twitter and face book, it is easy to predict that in future, there will be more virtual friendships which people will want to turn into real relationships.
As I explained to them, I would want everyone to appreciate that such decisions are never taken either in a haste or without realising the pros and cons of this life changing decision. Life is tough in any case, it gets tougher, and more so, after an Indo-Pak adventure. Since there are decisions which when taken can effectively be non-reversible. The decision of one of the spouses to forego his or her passport for the other side cannot be reversed, whether the marriage works or not. Secondly, when the couple has children, their nationality is one or the other. So if the marriage fails, the woman may have to suffer a lot in terms of losing her children, if the children happen to have the father’s nationality (or vice versa).
I have personally seen a couple of cases in which things did not work out and the mother and children were left stranded across the border, unable to meet again at all. I also know a woman, who is bearing all her husband’s abuses including his second marriage, only because she does not want to lose the children who have the father’s nationality. Moreover, her children are very young, and she can’t think of separation, as she has no family support or financial standing in her husband’s country, for which she left her own.
All this is certainly not intended to dissuade anyone from daring to cross the love border. But those who think of it should be fully informed of all the issues involved before embarking on this toughest exam of one’s real life.
The young twitter couple I mentioned is adamant that they want to tie the knot and transition their relationship from the virtual to the real world. I wish them good luck in their future journey.

The writer is an Indian gynaecologist and health activist married to a Pakistani. She blogs at
//thinkloud 65.wordpress.com/

Category:

AmanKiAsha, India, Indo-Pak, Pakistan, Published, Uncategorized

Of Unity, Faith and Discipline



First published in Blog TheNews :  http://blogs.thenews.com.pk/blogs/2011/12/22/of-unity-faith-and-discipline/

One evening, the perpetual sad news on the television of sectarian killings, petty politics, poverty and floods overwhelmed me and made me feel a little nauseated.

To get fresh air, I walked outside in the lawn, only to see a threesome of geese sitting beside a bird feeder. One was limping with injury, while the other two were flapping their wings to encircle the injured.

Dejected with being human, I pondered, how the free birds, travelled 4500 miles every year from Europe to Central Asia, flying over mountain ranges to arrive in the marshes of the subcontinent for the winter.

Their honks reminded me of a research which found that these geese migrate thousands of miles as one flock, in a ‘V’ formation. If any bird falls sick or is injured, two geese fall out of formation and follow it down to help and protect it till it is able to fly or is dead. When the geese if healthy enough to fly, they launch out on their own formation until they catch up with their group.

“I wish I was one of you.” I muttered.

“Why?” asked one. “Aren’t you the most intelligent species created by God?”

Surprised I answered “Yes, but I love the way you creatures fly miles and miles, as free birds, with no passports, visas or expensive tickets. And no one is there to stop you at the borders.”

With a twinkle in its eye, the geese answered “Yes indeed. But do you know how do we succeed in braving such distances?”

I replied “Yes, you fly in flocks united as one group, in a V-formation.”

As I spelt the word united, my heart sank at the disunity that we display when we quarrel because of religious, sectarian and ethnic differences, instead of staying united in a flock as Pakistanis.

“Yes, unity and discipline are the foundation with which we brave through our arduous journey from Siberia to South Asia” declared another.

I wondered how the traveling in ‘V’ formation offered discipline.

The witty goose answered my concern by explaining, “Staying organised in a V gives us strength. The bird ahead flaps his wings to reduce the air resistance and gives a lift to the next behind it. Subsequently it gets passed on to the whole flock. And this way we are able to add a 75% greater flying range.”

“But you let the one at the front do the most labour by flapping its wing through the air resistance. How inhuman?” I retorted.

“You call this inhuman? Being cruel is so ‘human’ I would say”, the goose snapped back.

I knew the goose was right.

“Not only do we stay united and disciplined, we keep our faith in whoever our leader is. Our leader leads with hard work and the ones behind follow him with complete faith. Those at the extreme back keep honking all through the journey. Have you ever experienced how energising it is when someone gives you support from behind? It synergises one’s capacity far beyond one’s capability.”

This confused me. What was this faith the goose spoke about?

“Faith isn’t just the excuse for which you humans kill one another. It is a mutual faith between our leader and rest of the flock. It is this trio of unity, discipline and faith that enables us to brave harsh weather, sometimes even lack of food on our long journey” remarked the goose.

“Do you know this Unity, Discipline and Faith that you follow along the 4500 km journey, was actually a slogan given by our Founding Father?” I bragged.

All the bird heads turned at me in shock, and after a long silent pause one of them remarked:

“Oh, so you humans have heard of unity, faith and discipline?”

And with that exclamation, all three of them flew up in the sky, in a small V formation, perhaps for their final destination, further east.

As they went out of sight, so did the poignant lesson they had taught me. Why would I learn from pea brained geese?

After all I am the most intelligent species on Earth. Isn’t that what the geese had said in the first place?

Category:

Published, Uncategorized

Continuation of a joint heritage


Published in Aman Ki Asha , in TheNews on December 14, 2011. http://amankiasha.com/detail_news.asp?id=584

Ilmana Fasih recounts some examples of the ‘Ganga Jamuni Tehzeeb’ and centuries’ old, peaceful coexistence beyond religious divides

An otherwise sane looking person I met at a party recently started to spew venom laced with conspiracy theories about “Hindu Muslim animosity”. To top it all, he tried to use my own life to justify his views, insisting that my going

to live in Pakistan after marrying a Pakistani was proof of the natural divide. He refused to accept my views that a peaceful coexistence between people of different faiths is possible or that my going to Pakistan from India was not based on religious reasons.

His hate-filled thoughts kept me sleepless for hours that night. But talking over the phone to my mother in Delhi later, I was cheered up by her mention of Ganga Jamuni Tehzeeb. Our conversation triggered off thoughts about this beautiful, fluid culture that refuses to be boxed up and compartmentalised.

The name Ganga Jamuni Tehzeeb is as beautiful as its spirit. It refers to the centuries’ old, peaceful coexistence between Hindus and Muslims of the subcontinent. Not only did the two faiths borrow cultural practices from each other, but they also exchanged each other’s vocabularies. So much so that now one is hardly able to find any difference between spoken Urdu and spoken Hindi.

The Nawabs of Awadh in north India in the 1700s are considered the pioneers of Ganga Jamuni Tehzeeb. At least, the term was coined in their times. But on ground it existed well before that era.

The starkest example of this syncretic culture is the Purana Hanuman Mandir in Lucknow, which is crowned by an Islamic symbol, a crescent. According to legend, the temple was built by Nawab Saadat Ali Khan to honour the wish of his mother, who had dreamt of building a temple. The tradition of honouring the Nawab’s gesture still continues when the Muslims in the area put up stalls of water during the Bada Mangal festival at the temple, and Hindus manage sabeels (stalls) of sherbet and water during Muharram in reverence for Imam Hussain.

Not far from Lucknow, the rulers of the Hindu holy city of Kashi (also known as Benaras or Varanasi) observed the Azadari (the mourning) during Muharram, wearing black on Ashura. Ustad Bismillah Khan, the renowned Shehnai maestro, began his career as a shehnai player in Vishwanath temple, Kashi. In fact, many of the musicians, Hindu and Muslim, who play in the temples, fast during Ramazan and also observe Vrat during the Hindu Navratras.

Even today, Muslim artisans in Kashi/Varanasi who make Taziyas for Muharram also make effigies of Ravan for Dussehra, a friend tells me. Hindus too participate in Muharram processions and make Taziyas in many cities, notably Lucknow.

Similarly a Sindhi friend talks of the centuries-old peace and harmony between the Hindus and Muslims of Sindh. Adherents of both faiths revere and pray together at the shrine of Jhuley Lal, she says. The shrine walls are inscribed

with Arabic verses as well as Hindu names of Gods. An age-old common greeting of Sindhi Hindus and Muslims is “Jhulelal Bera-Hee-Paar”.

Karachi’s 150-year old cremation ground for Hindus has a Muslim caretaker, although there are many Hindus in the city. This caretaker is responsible for cleaning the statues and lighting the lamps in the temple, and takes care of the urns that contain the ashes of the dead after cremation, until their loved ones immerse the ashes in water.

Cultural practices in Sindh are a fusion of the two cultures. If the Hindus, fervently use Allah as the reference to God, the Muslims touch the feet of their elderly as traditions borrowed from each other’s cultures.

The contribution of Sufi poetry towards this peaceful coexistence, from Kabirdas and Amir Khusro, to Bulleh Shah on the other side, is well known.

Beyond faith, at the cultural level, the Ganga Jamuni Tehzeeb has seen some beautiful creations like the Ghazal style of singing and the classical dance form Kathak.

Kathak’s journey from ancient times to its present form merits a walk-through. The word “katha” comes from “katha” or story telling. It has its roots in ancient times, when storytellers narrated epics or mythological stories like Shakuntala, and the Mahabharata through dance forms in temples. However with the arrival of Mughals, the dance, enticed to come to the courts, developed into a more Persianised form. The Kathak dancers adopted the whirling

from the dervishes to the ‘chakkars’. The rhythm of the footsteps found harmony with the beat of the tabla recently discovered by Amir Khusro. The female Kathakaars (storytellers) abandoned the sari of ancient times for the angarkha and churidar pyjama. The language of narration also transformed from Sanskrit to Brij Bhasha and then Urdu.

There may be more examples of such coexistence and development in other regions of the subcontinent too.

Those who propagate conspiracy theories and narrate stories of hate and disharmony need to know that even with the physical separation between India and Pakistan, the spirit of Ganga Jamuni Tehzeeb lives on. The lack of communication between the two countries, particularly after the 1965 and 1971 wars, has not managed to dampen the natural instincts of sharing these cultures.

Farid Ayaz and Abu Muhammed, the renowned Qawwals from Pakistan continue to sing Bhajans which their gharana has been singing for the last 300 years. On the other side are Wadali brothers who sing Bulleh Shah Kaafis and Naats with the same devotion. Despite all odds, Sheema Kermani and her students in Pakistan have continued to keep the dance forms, not only of Kathak, but also Bharatnatyam and Odissi, alive and known in Pakistan.

The recent collaboration between Zeb and Haniya from Pakistan and Shantanu and Siwanand Kirkire of India yielded the soft melody “Kaho kya khayal hai” in a beautiful blend of Dari and Hindi. I could not help relate it to the Zehaal-e-Miskeen composition by Amir Khusro which was a beautiful fusion of Persian and Brij Bhasha.

And now another peacenik in the form of Shahvar Ali Khan makes a music video titled ‘No Saazish No Jang’ (No Conspiracy, No War). It is heartening to see the visuals, and hear the voices of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Bapu Mahatama Gandhi together in the backdrop.

It is not possible to list all collaborations between the two countries and across religious divides, particularly in fields of films, music, health (the most significant being the Heart to Heart initiative by Rotary and Aman ki Asha). But all these initiatives testify to the desire for peace, not hate.

As for me, convinced that each of these efforts towards peaceful coexistence is based on foundations going back centuries, I slide into my bed, comforted by the faith that peace, not hate, will ultimately prevail.
It’s just a matter of time.

Dr Ilmana Fasih is an Indian gynaecologist and health activist married to a Pakistani. Her blog is Blind to Bounds https://thinkloud65.wordpress.com/

Category:

AmanKiAsha, Amir Kusro, Art, Bulleh Shah, CULTURE, Farid Ayaz ka Jadoo, India, Indo-Pak, Music, Pakistan, Peace, Personal, Politics, Published, RELIGION, Social Issues

An Indian who moves to Pakistan


Published in @ExpressTribune Blog on December 9, 2011

This blog post is a response to an article published in The Express Tribune by Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy titled:“Deepening the Pakistan-India divide.” Hence I address this to him.

Sir,

I know exactly how you feel. I have been feeling the same every year for the last 20 years when I go to seek a visa for India. I have to fill the same form which is ‘special’ for Pakistani Nationals (and it is the same for Indians in the Pakistan embassy).

I am not a professor like you who gets an invite and a letter to give a lecture at some university. Nor am I an artist who gets to show a business contract for facilitating the visa. In both these cases, to be able to get an Indian visa is much easier than it is for me.

I am an ordinary Pakistani who wants to visit my relatives in India. And every year the daunting question arises:

What if I do not get the visa?

Days before I fill up the forms, my soul shudders with this fear.

But then, why do I want to go to India so desperately each year? No, I do not want to visit some old relatives whom I got separated from during the partition, nor do I want to see my ‘virtual’ friend or my distant cousins who I reconnected with on Facebook or Twitter.

No, Sir. I seek a visa to visit my parents and brothers. You read it correct – my parents.

It was 20 years ago by the stroke of fate I guess, I chose to marry a Mr Right. And in that youthful enthusiasm perhaps, I chose to deliberately to ignore that he wasn’t an Indian like me, but a Pakistani. And after having got married I also deliberately chose to take the Pakistani passport knowing that it would be the most practical solution for my family. I have no regrets for either of the decisions I took.

However, each year that I wish to visit my parents I have to stand in the same queue as any ordinary Pakistani would, furnishing the same documents and details, facing the same scrutiny without being given an iota of consideration that I am Indian-born, and bred in New Delhi for 24 years – an Indian who graduated from a premier medical school in New Delhi.

Sir, I would also like to let you know that my parents aren’t any Indians who’s credentials are hazy or in doubt. Both my parents have retired as professors from Delhi University and are well-known vocal secular individuals. But this does not matter to those who have the authority to grant a visa. To them, I am just a passport number holding a Pakistani nationality.

If my husband travels frequently to India with me, he is taken aside by the non-uniformed personnel in Pakistan, who ask why there are so many India visa stamps on his passport. If I do not travel for three years in a row, the Indian authorities say they need a fresh inquiry about me and that it will take any amount of time, between three months to any unspecified duration for my visa to be approved.

Honestly, I have not had much disappointment in obtaining a visa (though at times I have waited several months), barring the time when the Kargil dispute was fresh. This does not happen because of any procedural ease, but because a resourceful relative managedto push for it in the right place. And during the Kargil time, not even the contacts were willing to help.

The visa officers are generally very kind, I must admit. They often sympathise with me, and express their helplessness regarding the matter. Their hands are “tied” they say. And of course, it is a serious “security matter”, I am told.

Over the years, I have seen that the visa procedures take sinusoidal patterns. At times all seems well and the whole process is smooth-sailing. But then some political trigger offsets the whole process, resetting it from the start.

There are many such women like me, but a lot less fortunate, for whom the idea to get a visa to go and see their parents is no less than a dream. For many women, due to financial constraints, the idea to go up to Islamabad from Karachi, to even ‘try’ for a visa is a great ordeal. Many of them have barely seen their parents more than two or three times in the last two to three decades of their marriage.

And no one seems to hear their silent wails.

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/8618/an-indian-who-moved-to-pakistan/

Category:

Indo-Pak, Peace, Published

The Real Ambassadors: Making of an ‘Indian Pakistani’


Published in AmanKiAsha The News, October, 19, 2011
http://www.amankiasha.com/news_cat.asp?id=547&catId=2

“Relationships change minds and not knowledge”. Aun, an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, began his story with this quote from the well-known writer Reza Aslan.
Aun had come over to my place to share his experiences as a Pakistani living in India. He’s among the miniscule percent of Pakistani elite fortunate enough to have received the best education and grown up with adequate exposure and a wide horizon. Until age 16 he lived all over Pakistan as his civil servant father was transferred from on place to another.

Despite his elite education and exposure, he said that he always thought of India as an “enemy” country. The mention of India brought to his mind war, the conflicts between India and Pakistan over the past six decades. For this, he largely blamed his schooling as well as the media that always portrayed India as Pakistan’s adversary.

His views drastically changed when he had the opportunity to actually live in India for some years, after his father was posted to the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi as Minister (Trade). But Aun’s initial response to India was not very positive. He remembers the shabby New Delhi airport and “lots of slums and poverty” on the way to his hotel. He also initially hesitated to interact with locals during his first few days.

At the admission test at the British school in New Delhi, Aun met another prospective student, an Indian boy named Saurabh. In the few moments they interacted before the test, they discovered they had the same mother tongue (Punjabi), loved cricket, and craved biryani. From that day onwards, Aun embarked on a wonderful and fascinating journey of harmony and everlasting friendship with people from his neighbouring country. His best friend at school was Saurabh.
Sitting at my place, Aun recalled his economics teacher telling him of her own change of heart when she visited Lahore for the first time. The fear she felt, as an Indian and a woman, while boarding a taxi driven by a bearded driver melted as the driver, gauging her apprehension, reassured her and took her around the city. And at the end of it all, he refused to charge any money from his Indian ‘guest’. No longer could she stereotype every bearded Pakistani as an extremist.

There are countless such stories of such small but enriching experiences of love and hospitality that counter the hatred and bigotry. I know many instances of shopkeepers at Lahore’s Gawal Mandi, and New Delhi’s Pallika Bazar refusing to take any money from the ‘mehmaan’ (guest) from the neighbouring country.

Aun told me that, despite his apprehensions, he quickly and easily made a fleet of friends among his Indian schoolmates, none of whom had any qualms in accepting him as one of them. His eyes twinkled as he recalled his friends in New Delhi coming over to his home to eat Pakistani biryani.
Two touching incidents he narrated demonstrate the compassion that exists among the people from both sides.

The first case involved an uncle of his, who came to Delhi for a liver transplant, needed about 25 units of blood. A shiver ran though me when I heard that it took barely a few hours for Aun and his Indian friends to collect the required amount of blood: the donors willingly gave their blood despite knowing that the recipient was Pakistani.

The other case was that of a Pakistani baby brought to India to be operated on for a congenital heart disease. Again, Aun’s Indian friends got the required units of blood reserved in no time.
“When I visited the baby and his parents back in their village in Pakistan some years later, all the neighbours and extended family came to see me,” remembers Aun. “They all were overwhelmed with immense gratitude for the Indians who donated blood and helped the baby to live.”

Sitting in that small village in Pakistan, their hearts had changed forever; they were no more gullible to the propaganda of hate spread by the vested interests on both sides.

After finishing high school, as he left for further studies in Toronto, Aun knew that he and his Indian friends were good ambassadors for their respective countries, creating a positive impression on the other side. They had no hidden agendas or points to score against each other. They had no real differences. All that separated them was a barbed wire. Aun intends on going back to Pakistan and becoming a civil servant like his father. His dream posting? New Delhi.

He wants to do whatever he can to remove misunderstandings between the two nations. “The only way I think that is possible is to allow people from both countries to interact with each other,” he says.

Aun told me that his Pakistani and Indian friends in Toronto jokingly call him a “Pakistani-Indian”. It’s an identity he feels pride in.

As Aun left for Pakistan recently, I tweeted the last two verses from a poem I had written for my blog some time ago:

“Oh! the lines between our lands sketched,
Let they not on our hearts be ever etched.”
#IndoPak

A few minutes later I received an equally emotional reply from Namita, a twitter friend in India:
“am waiting on this side of the barbed fence, looking longingly on the other side, waiting for the gates to open.. #India #Pakistan”

I did not reply to her tweet. I had no words but only tears of anguish and helplessness, in response to her affection.

Dr Ilmana Fasih is an
Indian gynaecologist and health activist married to a Pakistani. She blogs at
//thinkloud65.wordpress.com/

Category:

AmanKiAsha, India, Indo-Pak, Pakistan, Peace, Published

Let the baby survive and grow


Published in AmanKiAsha The News on Oct 5, 2011.

Nirupama Rao, now Indian ambassador to Washington, reportedly said of the Agra Summit at which Vajpayee and Musharraf met: “Though there were midwives, a still-born child was born in Agra”. A healthy baby was born that night, but was replaced by a “still-born”, reportedly retorted a Pakistani delegate.

Whatever the rhetoric or interpretation, the fact remains that the baby could not breathe in the air it needed – of peace and confidence from the two sides. Hence it died. How many such babies have died over so many years after such meetings?

The love-hate relationship between India and Pakistan does not allow the two neighbours to be indifferent to each other. They keep the relationship going by conceiving ideas and dialogues, but the babies somehow never survive. They can’t. The trust deficit kills them.

The parents need two things to nourish the baby and ensure its survival. The first is ‘love’ and the second, ‘trust’.

I know first-hand, that there is no dearth of love amongst the masses on both sides. It is so evident from their interest towards each others arts and cultural affairs. If Pakistanis’ love for Bollywood films and Indian soaps is immense, then Indian craving for Pakistani singers and music groups is no less intense.

Then there’s the curiosity with which we follow each others sport teams. If there are girls in Pakistan swooning over Dhoni, there are lasses in India putting up posters of Afridi in their rooms.
The pairing of Aisam ul Haq and Rohan Bhopana in professional tennis, or Shoaib Malik and Sania Mirza tying the knot, are also living examples of that love. Despite the practical difficulties, non-celebrity cross-border marriages continue to take place. They don’t hit the limelight, but it is the love and bonds between us that makes them possible even after 64 years of separation.

Even when mishaps occur across the border and when some people do indulge in mudslinging, I bear witness to the fact that on both sides, there is a sizable majority who feel a heartache for the sufferings of their brothers and sisters across the border.

Just take the bonds that exist between the media personnel of both sides. If Beena Sarwar from Pakistan speaks through her soul to break the touching story of a Pakistani pilot’s letter to the daughter of an Indian pilot, Barkha Dutt on the other side follows up with a live TV programme that echoes these emotions from the bottom of her heart.

Another pair of journalist friends post the following facebook comments around August 14th and 15th, the Independence Days of the two countries: Shivam Vjj, Delhi: “All the world’s countries are mine. – borders. And Jeevay Pakistan!

Shiraz Hasan, Lahore: “There is a little bit of Indian in every Pakistani and a little bit of Pakistani in every Indian.” – Benazir Bhutto | Happy Independence Day to all Indian friends!

Many of us can cite numerous other such examples of friendship amongst the common folk. With this magnitude of love, there is no reason that the baby should not only survive, but be healthy and develop into the pride of its parents – the entire region of our Subcontinent.

But what do we do about the ‘trust deficit’ at the top, which smothers the baby? What more testimony of reconciliation do the powerful on both sides want, after the heart piercing letter of the Pakistani pilot to the daughter of the Indian pilot he shot down? What could be a greater example of forgiveness than the equally touching reply of the daughter, with the reassurance that she forgave and moved on long ago?

Together we make up 1.4 billion, about a fifth of humanity who aspire to live in peace and harmony in the region. Why does the trust deficit of just a handful keep jeopardising peace and harmony here?

The spirit at the Pakistan-India Parliamentarians Dialogue between the lawmakers of both sides in August was indeed yet another ray of hope. There was much needed discussion on political bones of contentions like Kashmir, Siachen and Sir Creek and the challenge of terrorism, all in a cordial environment.

It was even more encouraging that the issues which really matter to the people on both sides were given the due emphasis – economic ties (related to trade and investment), energy (via Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline), agreements to open new transit routes (across the Line of Control in Kashmir and at Khokhrapar-Monabao) or easing travel restrictions.

The idea of the “trusted visitors programme” was indeed a significant step forward for the hundreds of families divided across the border.

The categories laid down for such trusted individuals included senior citizens, businessmen, elected representatives etc. However, an important category was missing which by no means may be considered less trusted – that of couples who are married across the border.

I understand there will be more such meetings of the group. I beg the authorities on both sides to please look into these families, of cross-border couples, as also trustworthy. I belong to one such family, and I promise we will never let you down for having done so.

As for the elected representatives on either side, I beg them to please push in the high corridors of power to reduce the trust deficit, so that next time when an Indo-Pak Treaty starts to be born, it does not die a premature death.

Wednesday, October 05, 2011

Dr Ilmana Fasih is a gynaecologist and health activist of Indian origin,  married to a Pakistani citizen. She blogs at https://thinkloud65.wordpress.com/

Category:

AmanKiAsha, India, Indo-Pak, Pakistan, Peace, Politics, Published, Social Issues, Uncategorized

Erasing psychological borders


Published in The News @AmanKiAsha on September 2, 2011

Panchee nadiya aur pawan ke jhonke, koi sarhad inhen na roke;
Sarhad to insanon ke liye hai, socho tumne aur meine kya paya insaan ho ke

Birds, rivers & gusts of wind, no borders inhibit,
Borders are for us, think what have we gained being Humans ?

This couplet by Javed Akhtar from a Bollywood blockbuster entered my ears and shook my soul.
“Wow! Javed Sahib  knows how I feel each time I go to the Indian consulate in Pakistan to apply for visas for my family to visit my parents in New Delhi.”

“In January 1990, a girl in her mid-twenties in New Delhi ties the knot with a Pakistani man in his late twenties. Happy, but quite unsure how the things in her life would unfold after that. She wasn’t a poor small-town girl getting married to a well-off cousin in Karachi in compliance with her parents’ decision. She was a typical city girl, who made it to a premier medical school in Delhi and was full of patriotic fervour for her homeland. Her parents did not become a hurdle, but advised that she decide it with full insight, and not regret later. It took her four painful and paranoid years to come to this decision. The young man across the border, putting aside his ego in the face of repeated refusals for years, convinced her that they could make it.”

Twenty years on, I can confidently say that we have made it. Our life together hasn’t been all tulips and roses of course. We’ve had our share of ups and downs, in addition to the usual hurdles any usual couple faces. Both of us being passionately patriotic about our respective homelands, it hasn’t been easy. What helped us was the erasing of psychological borders, knowing that humanity on both sides of the border has the same needs and aspirations. We promised to uphold sanity in our heads and not spew patriotic venom against each other. Not that outsiders spared us. Any bitter comment against the other side by a “patriotic acquaintance” from either side affected me more than my husband.
At times I would be reduced to tears after such taunts, to be comforted by my husband with a “mitti pao” attitude. It is not easy when someone passes a snide remark about your homeland. Any news of a bomb blast or riots in my city, would have me sitting paranoid, glued to the TV, wondering about the safety of my parents and siblings.

In kindergarten our children faced questions from curious friends – like,
“Do your have fights at home during a cricket match between India and Pakistan?”

My son would come home crying that his friends teased him about having an Indian mother, saying,
“Your mom is a traitor!”
 It took him some years to feel confident that his mom wasn’t a traitor.

But the only time I really, if ever, regretted my decision was when I had to queue up outside the visa window at the consulate of a country I called my homeland. Miserable is an understatement of how I felt when the man behind the counter looked at my children, asking for details, as if I was taking little terrorist recruits with me to my beloved city.

And then on our return to Pakistan, my husband would be pulled aside by the airport security, questioning him about the frequency of his visits across the border. One has to live it to feel it.

My siblings and I grew up with our eyes open to the world issues, with parents who taught international politics at a university.
We were trained to look beyond our boundaries and feel for the suffering of others be it in Palestine, apartheid in South Africa, or Gen Zia’s martial Law in Pakistan. I salute my parents for raising us as “human” beings with a wide horizon.
Some attribute my “Indian roots” to my comments on news blogs or Face book regarding political matters in Pakistan. Yes, I am proud of my roots. But I also have a husband and two kids who are passionately patriotic Pakistanis. They love both places. And so do I. I claim that I own both countries, and love both too. Karachi is mine as much as Delhi is.

We know there is good and bad on both sides. We don’t indulge in mutual blame games. We have erased the psychological borders at home and we respect our political borders. And we love this feeling.
What if the one and half billion across both the borders could also erase the psychological borders? After all, people on both sides of the border are made of the same flesh and bones, we share the same genetic pool. I wonder if I will live to see that day.

Dr Ilmana Fasih is a gynaecologist and health activist of Indian origin, married to a Pakistani. Contact her via amankiasha@janggroup.com.pk
Friday, September 02, 2011

Category:

AmanKiAsha, India, My world, Pakistan, Peace, Politics, Published, Social Issues

Footprints, theirs and ours


Published in two parts in  Dateline Islamabad  as an Op-Ed  on 12 and 13 August 2011

Part 1

AUGUST 7 was the 70th death anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore, and I remember his Nobel winning poetry which begins thus:
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Incidentally, I found myself reading something similar in the spirit of this poem — Kamran Rehmat’s eloquent piece Meeting Jens Stoltenberg on the simplicity of Norwegian PM’s life and the minimal security he keeps (Dateline Islamabad, July 28). His rendezvous led me to the memory of the news in 1986, when Olof Palme was murdered while walking back from a cinema at night in Sweden.

“Prime Ministers walk back home?” — that was my instant reaction, then.
There is a reason why Nordic countries are considered the safest places to live. (I wonder if the recent Norwegian episode and its root cause will change that, but that’s beside the point here)

Reading through, one instantly compares them to the traffic standstills or detours one has to face when our politicians are passing.

The instant pop-up in my Third World mindset is — “Come on, those are developed nations and we are merely ‘developing’.”

It takes me back to what I gleaned from the movie The Last Emperor, in 1990, where they showed when the king passed through the streets of ancient China, the common man was asked to turn away their gaze  because their poor eyes weren’t worthy of seeing the emperor.

Perhaps, our politicians in power, too, are emperors in their own right, who live not in forts or castles by name — but their abodes are bedecked no less than castles and protected no less than fortresses. And the feet of the poor common man aren’t worthy
of treading the same street when the emperors pass through it.

But hold on.

I have two personal experiences from this very Third World where the high and mighty navigated with the same freedom and minimal security as the Norwegian or Swedish premiers.

One of them is none other than Mahathir Mohammed of Malaysia. (You might say that Malaysia is not much of a developing country but the reason why they have surged ahead is because of this very man about whom I will narrate a personal
anecdote.)

My family had been visiting Malaysia as tourists in 2002. This is during the last days of Ramadan and we chose to travel to Malaysia to see how their
Muslims celebrated Eid.

On the day of the festival, we went to the Central Mosque in Kuala Lumpur for prayers. Not sure of the timings, we reached the mosque way early and  my husband and son sat in the very first row, right behind the imam.

Meanwhile, I settled with my daughter in the first row of women’s area — ensuring that our men folk were well in sight.

After an hour or so, when the mosque had been reasonably full — no mad rush, mind you — a few men walked up to the front rows and some others started to make way for them. My husband was asked to move a little to the side, which he did. But to his utter surprise, the man for whom his space was being vacated was none other than President Mahathir Mohammed.

Having seen that my husband gave space to him, Mahathir smiled at him. My husband stepped forward, shook hands with him and introduced himself as a Pakistani, who had come to see Eid festivities in Malaysia.

After the prayers, he again turned to my husband and invited him to visit Putrajaya (president’s residence) and partake the open feast which the president hosted each year for his compatriots.

Our joy had no bounds — we almost thought that we were invited to a personal lunch with the president.
After a few hours of strolling in the Eid bazaars in Bukit Bintang (street), listening to the beautiful melodies of Salamat Hariraya (Malaysian Eid greeting), we dressed in our best and headed for Putrajaya.

It was a huge congregation, with tents put up and thousands of Malaysians, of all ethnicities, in a picnic mood and enjoying the ethnic food the Malays serve
on Eid. (To continue)

 Part 2 : 

MY family and I arrived at the Putrajaya (president’s house) and were told by someone that this was the last time the open Eid feast, which enabled the commoners to meet the president, would be held as Mahathir Mohammed had announced to step down.

We saw what looked like a hopelessly long queue on one side of the tent, leading to a door. We were told this was for those who would like to meet the first couple and give their Eid wishes to them. We joined the queue.

My husband told one of the guards that we were from Pakistan and President Mahathir himself had invited us, in an attempt to jump the queue. But the policeman just gave a hospitable smile and no more, which was signal enough for us to stay in the queue. It was a two-hour wait and my kids used it to make a small card out of some paper envelope, with a blue ball point sketching a flag of Pakistan and an Eid greeting.

Finally, our turn came. We shook hands with the first couple and to our utter surprise, he himself told his wife, “They are Pakistanis and have come to see our Eid.”

My kids gave them the card. We hugged them, Pakistani-style and were handed a plastic Tiffin on top of which was inscribed “Thanks from Putrajaya” with traditional Malaysian sweets inside. We got exactly the same box as everyone else and approximately, the same two or three minutes of chat as other locals.

To cut a long story short, in a fortnight’s stay in Malaysia, we happened to meet their president twice, and that, too, without much difficulty.

The second incident was in Kolkata (then- Calcutta), in late 1979, when I had been visiting the city with my parents, who were attending some conference. My parents chose to commute in bus as that was the most convenient mode to travel in the overcrowded metropolis.

In the middle of one journey, my father turned our attention towards a lean and thin dhoti-clad man who had climbed the bus. That man was Jyoti Basu, who had become the chief minister of West Bengal, just a year or so ago.

My father mentioned it to some of his friends but they weren’t surprised, for it was common knowledge that Basu sometimes boarded buses just to stay connected with hoi polloi.

Basu continued to win the people’s confidence for the next two decades (from 1977 to 2000). A CPI(M) member, he went on to introduce land reforms, giving opportunity to the poor to have their own lands. He brought political stability to the state to the extent when the whole of India was burning— once after Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984 following the Operation Blue Star, and the other at the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992, his administration did not allow any rioting in his state.

Hence, it was not just a coincidence that we saw these men roaming free in public — years of commitment for the common man had made them fearless.

With this chain of thoughts, my mind shifts to the recent switch on-and-off that goes on in the killing fields of Karachi. It does not need a vision of 6/6 to see who all are behind these killing fields.

By all I mean ALL — none is above it. I wonder, with this track record and with the mess that the stake holders of ‘peace’ create, can they have the courage to sail freely among their own public like Mahathir and Basu?

No wonder our streets from Islamabad to Karachi come to a standstill when they sail fearfully on them.

And tragically, it is the common man, who gets labeled as hateful, narrow-minded and divided on ethnic and sectarian lines.

In conclusion, I want to revert to the closing lines of Tagore’s poem, which may serve as a prayer to us:

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

The writer is a gynecologist, health activist,
and m-Health entrepreneur, of Indian origin,
married to a Pakistani

Category:

India, International, Pakistan, Peace, Personal, Published

The cost of crossing the ‘love’ border ~Indo-Pak Visa Part 2


Published in Aman Ki Asha blog by The News/Jang Group on August 03, 2011 http://www.amankiasha.com/detail_news.asp?id=509

For years after the Indian Consulate in Karachi was closed down, a cousin of mine (an Indian married to a Pakistani) whose parents live in Jaipur, followed the following trail year after year. She would travel from Karachi where she lives, to Islamabad to obtain an Indian visa. If successful, she would travel back to Karachi to pack up. She and her family would then travel to Lahore by train, and cross the Wagah-Atari border. They would then take a train from Amritsar to Delhi and then another to Jaipur. With 3 children, she could not afford air travel every year. 

The entire ordeal required her to travel over 4600 kilometres and several days in summer vacations, when in reality, the smallest distance between Jaipur and Karachi is only 1066 kilometres (through Khokrapar Munabao) and the train journey is just a 3-4 hours long.

I understood the real nightmare of this struggle some years ago when I had to travel from Karachi to Islamabad to get a visa for my father-in-law for his medical treatment in India.

My husband and I sat outside the Indian consulate in Islamabad for two days, sharing benches with people who had mostly come all the way from Karachi or Hyderabad. Most had been sitting there every day from 9 am to 5 pm for as long as 15 to 20 days at a stretch. The majority appeared to be daily wage earners, the poor and with no resources to take short cuts, like us, to obtain a visa – we had the parchi (‘slip’) that would expedite the visa process.

A lady and her husband, a carpenter hailing from Lalukhet in Karachi, had been sitting there every day for almost 20 days, from morning till the consulate closed in the evening, without any clue about whether they would be granted a visa or not. The embassy issues a limited number of visas each day. Names come up on a given day, their luck as unpredictable as a lottery. The more resourceful among the applicants jump the line, pushing these poor people to the back of the queue.

This couple had spent so much money on the travel from Karachi to Islamabad that they could not afford even a cup of tea from the tea stall outside the embassy, which caters to visa seekers. Every day the carpenter and his wife brought with them homemade rotis and pickle for lunch. I asked the woman how long she would sit there, and she replied with certainty: “When the money runs out, I will go back home whether I get the visa or not”.

She had applied after hearing that her mother was on her deathbed and had asked to see her one last time. She had been married for over twenty years but had been able to visit her native Hyderabad, Deccan, only once, and that too 12 years ago.

Her marriage had been a stroke of fate when her husband, a cousin from Pakistan, visited them. The poor family had been facing tough times, and found this as opportunity to make their daughter’s life better, as the cousin’s family was more prosperous. (How was she duped into marrying an already married man is another story for another time). 

This story is all too common to many families in the lower middle class strata who marry across the border; their girls are hardly able to visit their parents a handful of times in their lifetime, mostly due to not being able to afford the time, expenses and resources involved in obtaining the visa.

They resign themselves to their fate and learn to live with just memories of home. It is only when another sibling is about to get married; or a parent is ill; or dying, that they gather all their means and courage to try to obtain a visa to go to their erstwhile homeland.

The procedure has been somewhat modified now, so that people in other cities can apply for Indian visas through a courier service, without having to travel to Islamabad. But applicants still have no idea how long the process will take. A friend who wanted to attend her parents’ 50th wedding anniversary celebrations in India received a reply after an anxious six month wait, saying that her application papers were incomplete. Some don’t hear any news for a year or more; others don’t get any response at all.

Over the last two decades I have seen a see-saw situation. Things seem to move towards easing the procedure, then suddenly something occurs and the whole change is reset from the start.
A silver lining is that the Khokrapar-Munabao line, suspended since 1965, has been revived, reducing unnecessary distance for many.

I hope and wish that the latest news about easing of the borders does not remain restricted to the artists who travel on exchange programmes or businessmen attending conferences, but is extended to this voiceless, resigned group of poor, invisible women who marry across borders. I am afraid they are the group most likely to be forgotten when the categories are laid down for easing visa procedures.

Most will never be able to raise their own voice and will resign to their fate of seeing their parents or first of kin, barely a few times in their entire lives, after they cross the ‘love’ border in matrimony.
On their behalf, I beg the authorities concerned to hear the silent wails of these women and to ease the visa process making it easier for them too, so that they may see their parents and families more often.

Ilmana Fasih

The writer is an Indian gynaecologist and women’s health activist, married to a Pakistani. She blogs at https://thinkloud65.wordpress.com/

Category:

AmanKiAsha, India, Indo-Pak, Pakistan, Peace, Personal, Published, Social Issues, Women

Cross-border couples and their visa travails ~Indo-Pak Visa Part 1


Published in Aman ki Asha blog The News/Jang Group on July 27, 2011

“A marriage license doesn’t come with a job description or a set of instructions. There is definitely some ‘assembly’ required. In fact, putting together a marriage can be likened to assembling an airplane in flight” – Patricia Love

Every marriage needs a lot of reassembling in social, psychological and emotional terms. But when marriages take place across the Indo-Pak border they also involve a lot of political reassembling.

Indo-Pak marriages are different from other cross-border marriages – such unions between people from these two neighbouring countries are far tougher and more challenging than marriages across oceans between people with vast cultural differences. The distance between India and Pakistan does not entail crossing oceans or even cultures but one has to cross huge mountains of hurdles in terms of legal and bureaucratic formalities.

With the pendulous political love-hate relationship that exists between the two countries, marrying and staying happily married across the border (‘pyar border paar’) is no small feat. It takes a tough mind and resilient heart to brave the challenges.

There are personal challenges involved in every marriage. But the additional challenges in Indo-Pak marriages include taking certain decisions which may be painful. As a patriotic and a proud Indian, it was hard for me to surrender my Indian passport and apply for a Pakistani. Not that I had any grudges against the latter, but to give up your national identity is an experience you have to live, to know how it feels.

You might ask why would an educated woman change her nationality? The answer is simple. No one coerced me. I did it for the desire to have a peaceful family life and for the sake of our children (who were to arrive later).

My British, Canadian and Filipino friends married to Pakistanis live without any problems in Pakistan, using their original passports. But for an Indian this is not possible.
I did quite a bit of homework before taking this life-changing decision. I knew of instances where people in this situation had retained their nationalities, leading to many practical and political challenges. Most of them advised me to swallow this bitter pill and make the change, but finally, it was entirely my own decision.

In Pakistan, the ID cards of both parents are required to obtain documents for children like B-form, passport, and ID card. A mother with an Indian passport would mean inviting trouble, with more errands from office to office, or one section officer to another, to get ‘no objection certificates’ or NOCs.

Obtaining a visa to visit family across the border is any case a Herculean task if you don’t have connections in the high offices. And for a family like ours living in a third country I would, if I had maintained my Indian nationality, have to go through the gruelling process of obtaining a Pakistani visa each time we were to visit Pakistan. By giving up my nationality and becoming a Pakistani, I thought at least we have to struggle for the visa on one side only, when my children and husband want to visit India.

Unfortunately, my having been a born Indian, lived there for 23 years, and having parents still living there, does not mean that my husband and children will be given any extra consideration when they apply for an Indian visa. I know this is also the case for Pakistani women who are married and live in India. The visa policies work on a reciprocal basis.

Our visa troubles are not a once in a while exercise, but an annual struggle. The struggle which I have been undertaking for the past twenty years, almost each year, to visit my ageing parents exactly the way any married woman aspires to visit her family. As the time nears for the visa application, I always shudder with the apprehension of “What if…”

Families like ours have no choice but to face this ordeal every time they want to visit ‘home’. Visas may be sometimes facilitated and expedited for artists going on a cultural exchange or for businessmen but the procedure, the requirements, the scrutiny, the hurdles are all exactly the same for people like us. We have to stand in the same queue as those applying for a visit visa for a conference or meeting (there is no ‘tourist’ visa between our two countries), to visit to meet distant relatives once or maybe twice in a lifetime.

Each time I stand in front of the visa submission window of the Consulate of the country where I was born, which I still love and own as I did then, I feel as if I am being punished for my audacious decision to marry across border. My counterparts across the border must be feeling the same, I am sure.

Once, I was exceptionally lucky: I obtained an Indian visa while sipping a cup of coffee in the office of the Consul General, when the Consulate was in Karachi. The CG turned out to be my father’s student. We followed the usual application procedure of course, but he expedited it. Then, as we left, a plainclothes official intercepted my husband and asked for our purpose of having visited the CG’s room. He said that our car’s plate number had been noted and that we must not repeat this again.

All told, in the 21 years of my marriage I have been lucky that despite the hurdles and the painful waiting times, I have not faced any serious disappointments in ultimately obtaining a visa for India.

The only time I faced a major setback was after the Kargil war, when tensions were so high that I could not visit my parents for three years, despite running from pillar to post, pulling various influential strings. Then, not even ‘high connections’ were willing to go out of their way to help me. However, for a vast majority of women from India married to Pakistanis, especially those living in Pakistan, it is by no means a smooth sailing.

Ilmana Fasih

The writer is an Indian gynaecologist and women’s health activist, married to a Pakistani. She blogs at https://thinkloud65.wordpress.com/

Category:

AmanKiAsha, India, Indo-Pak, Pakistan, Personal, Published, Social Issues, Women