Our Man From Delhi

Out at sea, when I was in the Merchant Navy, the accepted wisdom was that beyond 40 degrees South there were no laws and beyond 50 degrees South there was no God either. You were the law and you were also God. Up there at 15,000 odd feet, on the Manali-Leh Road, just short of Kaza, freezing my whatsit off where every breath you took was not a song but a labour of compelling necessity, waiting for the Shimla-Kaza Himalyan raid to cross so that I could get some photographs, God was the ever helpful men in uniform. They keep this part of India, like so many others, going when all else gives up.

That day the topic was the new government in Delhi, and as camera time faded into long shadow, we were bumping our way back towards Manali for the next days slog when we were stopped at a check-post for the usual traffic marshaling. Getting off, rub hands, light fag not to inhale but to simply appear warm, a uniform appears from the mist and says in rustic Punjabi, "Oye, tussi dilli toon press vale ho?" (You the press cats from Delhi?). "Ao jee, teevee-sheevee dekho, bada mazaa aa rayaa hai, jee. (Come and watch tv, we’re having a ball.) "Dono side te jee navee sarkar aayee hai, tain dono saadee haigeeyan." (Both sides new governments, and both ours.)

Intrigued, we move in, and there it is, CNN at full shrill, Pakistan has a new ruler. He is a military man and, wonder of wonders, born in Delhi. Simple logic in a jury-rigged messroom just off the most inhospitable road in the world, says that he will not attack his home-town. National loyalty is to the water you have drunk as a baby, not to mention that anybody who tried to drink the sewage flowing in the Jamuna needs to have his head examined first before he dies, and further not to mention that some precision bombing along the Jamuna may not be such a bad idea, it may just get cleaned up.

But, if you want the typical cab-driver, man in the street reaction from India, this is it: our guy is the new ruler in Pakistan. What, or who, is this "our guy"? To find out, here is a collage on the reactions along the highway from Manali via Shimla and back to Delhi.

A middle-class boy from the non-feudal though upwardly mobile class and background that makes up the majority of the educated and new powerfuls in both our countries, how can he be wrong? Not essentially from the Delhi Gym set, but managed to make it to the India Habitat Centre where they dress more ostentatiously. More than that, most of all, his wife wears a sari in a photograph taken a few days ago at Colombo, which front-paged here, and, hey that marks him as a real winner, the guy apparently likes the peg-leg-egg and the occasional foray at the politicians.

More? The guy looks so, well, ordinary, he wears specs, and, once again, "saade dilli daa mundaa hai jee, koi naa koi solution te nikalegaa jee, eh pakistan naal lafdaa politicians te babu-log daa hai jee, saadaa thode naa." (Our boy from Delhi, he will get some solutions, these problems with Pakistan are from the politicians and the foreign returned government guys, not ours.) If General Pervez Mussharaf had left behind a cousin, that person would have, surely, won any one of the seven seats from Delhi. After all, "saade dilli de munde daa bhraa hai jee?" (After all, he is the brother of our man in Pakistan from Delhi.)

Get back to Delhi, and the chattering set. All in an uproar. Democracy is finished next door. It finished here to, but we never noticed it or chose to ignore it, never mind that. The media is not free in Pakistan anymore. A few minutes later I hear the dulcet tones of Beena Sarwar doing her thing with Rajdeep Sardesai on Star Plus, but nobody is listening. The people are not protesting because they are scared of the Pak Army. Maybe, I don’t know.

Inside, maybe they are scared, what if this happens in India?

But this is for sure: the coffee table chattering set is up in arms. Somebody who is not one of theirs is in power in India. And now somebody who is not one of theirs is in power in Pakistan, too. Horrors, what could happen next? Solutions to a 52 year old problem? Uh-oh, what will all of us do, then?

What could happen next?

Surprisingly, how about an Armed Forces sponsored peace initiative? It is very easy for our rulers in India to talk about saving every inch of territory as they go about stripping every gram they can lay their hands on. Murmurs from within have reached this fine ex-uniformed person that, hey, not only do we have a direct line but we also have other means of communications now, and direct to the Pakistani bosses.

So, people of Pakistan, as you get ready to move into another round of some sort of Military Rule, please let us not have any more of that "India willing to move into the vortex" kind of bogey-man talk. First of all, we have enough keeping us busy and secondly, more important, it suits us to have a Pakistan that is better off. And if in the bargain, as we prepare to finally get rid of colonialism via a "right-wing Hindu Government," then if you do the same via "Military Rule," well, so much the better.

Far better than letting the same old colonial families ruling us.

And that is the real story. Pakistan or India, in both places, "saada munda sarkar chalaa rayaa hai jee, he will not harm Delhi. Or Islamabad. Or Amritsar. Or Lahore." In plural.

Veeresh Malik

New Delhi

India