On Countries of Dwelling

We lay strung in the middle of disillusion and faith, expectation and detachment, inspiration and disgust. One of the greatest grievances about life I have is that it doesn’t let us be in an extreme or at a static point on the spectrum of political or other activity. This constant flux in our brains is tiresome. Clearly, though, surrendering to the dynamic balance leaves us better off than defending ourselves against the inner change. There is only so far one can run away form something. Whereas when we aspire to greatness, whatever way we chose to define it, we’ll have the peace of mind that evades many people today.

Where am I today? Does my future point to the sun or a satellite to the sun, to the real purpose or some false reflection of it? Philosophy teaches us that even repeated scientific success can lead us to a tangent from truth. Am I leading a truthful life?

For the larger portion of my life I have deliberately defined myself from my national origin for various reasons, the greatest being my automatic overprotection for the underdog. Ex-Texan-Congressman’s mother once told him, “Always support the underdog. When in doubt, support the underdog.” My life revolved around this cryptic mantra, and I’d see myself follow patterns I never fully comprehended. In any event, Pakistan was always the sovereign underdog when I gained consciousness. From cricket matches to chai-paan conversations, there was no doubt it was hated around people I was within. Those conversations; vividly personal, and painful.

I believe I was 13 when I decided I am going to change the world, starting with Pakistan. My journals and self-affirmations was a testament to the seriousness of that spiritual vow. I drowned myself with self-motivational books, and kept my eyes on the goal. Then there was Pakistan in 1998. People there, either bent by the burden of their country’s inadequacy, or the more resourceful, bowing to the alter of geographic idolatry, and those that no ill could dissatisfy. Needless to say I was confused because I couldn’t fit in any box.

America arrived, as they would say in Urdu. This country is the best thing that ever happened to me without a doubt. It’s here I learned that even if everything is aesthetically perfect, hygienically sterilized, politically free, emotionally fertile and intellectually vast, you can get caught on to its bureaucracy so subtlety, so politely, that you wouldn’t know what hit you. You can be a cog in the machine, be it a productive one, a comma in a legal brief, a brick on the side of a road that will not be reconstructed for a long time. A bureaucracy of a “social construct of reality” that you’ve had no input in. It’s also here that I learned how beautiful democracy was intended to be, when Mills said that common sense requires you can live under a king as long as you have a fair hand in getting the king in power. It is here I listened to the most brilliant professors speak against the backdrop of a white board. As raw as the color white that has within the power of a thousand colors, for those who seek its beauty. The seminars, the conferences, the books on media, the diversity of people, respect for time, and the preciseness of the 4 seasons is a novelty I know I’ll find only here. It is also here I learned that Pakistan is still an underdog and India a demigod.

Aur India. My neighbor, America’s current fascination, my government’s enemy. A country whose people have successfully been handed down the hate machinery to the personal level after Kargil. India has taught me the toughest lesson: That India is not a man walking down the street on the Toyota dealership on Stevens Creek and Kiley in San Jose, with kolapuri chapal and a shirt with the first 4 buttons open. And the woman walking behind him in a sari and ashy feet, is not the Indian government, she is a woman like me, we face the same issues, harassment and what not, and she has a beautiful smile.

This lesson was so gently taught by a friend from India, an ex-BJP supporter, when he wrote an email about his feelings on the pogrom in Gujarat against Muslims. He said he didn’t know what to do, how to help, how to unhurt, how to understand. And he said that “one thing is for sure, “BJP doesn’t stand a chance in state elections.” And when BJP won his disappointment was a shameful silence. It was then that somehow it occurred to me that I know exactly how he feels. It was exactly what I felt when to my embarrassment the people of Pakistan took up a narrow version of religion to corrupt politics, and when desperately violent people behead visitors, and brutally murdered their own people. He helped me dislodge from the state of pathetic hostility where I defined myself by my enemy. Dialog, helps you realize human pain is human pain.

Pakistan, America and India. Accepting them on equal ground of the earth, allowed me to revisit my country of birth and residence, Uganda and Kenya respectively, in memory. Thus, I feel obliged to stand up for the cracks that Africa faces for no fault of its own. Hurting for it, was unimaginable before, though Africa too is every bit mine. And with ownership comes the economic concept of maintaining, and the responsiblity of speaking for its just battles.

Now when I step onto the soil in Pakistan this November to stay there, I won’t expect a unique blue of the sky or a goldener soil. It’ll be only as grand as I make it. And at the end, I am me, one, finite and sometimes even I loose control.

My nationalism brought me more than I expected: It made divisible, this earth for me to live, love and learn from other countries. Pakistan stood relative yet constant, for me, while I learned.