On The Other Hand

wonderfull article, very poignant.
whenever i read the old interacts, full of hope-about the future, about their own aspirations, i wonder what happened to these people.
What path did destiny choose for them?

I spent the 1st half of my life in the UK and the best half of my life in Pakistan. 11 wonderful, magical years. Years that have made me who I am, that have told me where Im going, and what I want to be. Im back in the UK now, and reading this article, it stirred in me the longing i have to return, its been 2 years now, and not a day goes by when I dont think of going back. My family is mostly here, but Pakistan will always, always be my home. Its corrupt, venal, sycophantic, but seeing only that is like complaining about the rain. True it gets you wet, and cold, but what about the wonderful earthy smell and the life it gives...y`all know wat i mean...theres no place like Home.

One of the best pieces of writing I`ve read at the Chowk.

Now! we dont have anyhthing like that? all we have now Army, democracy, Blah Blah Blah,,what happned to Paksitani common life.......despite all its problem no place like Pakiland.....beautiful article.......

awww damn now look what u did....im all misty-eyed thanks to u!!!

Lovely...

Brilliant!...after a very longtime, we get to hear something really nice about Pakistan. It sure is a wonderful place. I am a student in the US myself and haven`t been back home for a very longtime, but the times I have had there are incompareable. Never got that satisfaction again. Really thank you for producing something this exuberent. Keep up the good work!...

...thank you for this...

Mr. Pasha,

Read your article!!.Really enjoyed reading something positive about Pakistan for a change!!. Damn our politicians there who`ve sucked every drop of our country`s blood, otherwise we could`ve all been living there today instead of here in America. Don`t get me wrong though, I was born here and I love America, but having spent half of my life in Pakistan....there is no place like home. Its just that I guess I owe my self and my future generations a better and secure future so I opted staying here. Any ways!! Well Written!!

N. Loya

Well said.

I am moving back to Pakistan after 8 years of living in the U.S.

Tahnoon, the two things in your article which really caught my eye were; Pak gets a lot of bad press and how different Pakistanis look from the outside, how different they are from the inside.

I`ve always had real close ties with the motherland, but there is a undeniable fact that no one can deny, due to your position only as a student it was okay to live there for a `while`. Pakistan becomes very different if you try to make a living there. Pakistan is the ONLY free country in the world, free for the rich!

With this thought in mind, a middle class man like myself has started the journey back home.

I guess I am a gambling man!

re shan: the best way to settle down here (imho) is to take it one day at a time.you will find people to be a lot more intrusive than what you might have been accustomed to wherever you were.use the ``smile and nod`` technique..listen to whatever they have to say (eg ``we dont do that here``), and then go right ahead and do it anyway. if your lifestyle is one that would invite such comments from the relatively narrow minded people here, you must think long and hard before you actually decide to come back. any kind of indepence is discouraged, and standing up for what you believe in causes much heartache.but hey, perhaps the strength of your beliefs in doing what you feel is right regardless of what the majority says wil make this a better place for some future generation. or maybe we are doomed to a life of misery and opression.

it all comes down to this, are you a gambling man?

shandana

Dear Tahnoon

You have a great gift for writing. Pakistanis rightly have to navel gaze due to the problems facing our society but we do need a break. I wish there were more writers like you who talked up straight old fashioned goodness in a straight forward uncomplicated way. Amongst all the bigotry there is an amusing, warm side to life - I would love to have more opportunities to laugh off of our worries more through reading similar writing.

However, inspite of my love for my country, I agree with the previous writer - wherever I have been, East or West there are people like us who share our qualities. We must not lose sight of that.

Your style of writing is very personal but drives home a clear message. I think you should write more.

SOME RAMBLINGS...............

That is an interesting and even moving piece. Much as I hate to break the chorus of adulation, I would like to disagree on a small (even minor) point. What you have said about Pakistanis is, in fact, not unique to Pakistanis alone. Contrary to what you seem to imply, people are in fact, equally generous, equally open, equally welcoming, equally helpful elsewhere.... People, everywhere, once you get to know them are actually like that... it is NOT that we Pakistanis are especially generous, or hospitable, or welcoming... we are like all other human beings everywhere... good at the core of our being!

The rottenness, even when it comes is on the outside and much like apples the diseases are inflicted by ravages beyond our control rather than by an intent or purpose of our own.... Much like apples, human existence is also always under threat from pests of all kinds..... if we were only to focus on the pestilence, the fault would be ours, not of the apple! (Sorry to go on about the apples; just returned from Ziarat and finishing a report on apple production in Balochistan!)

The point I get from your story is not that Pakistanis are an especially nice bunch of apples... but that Pakistanis are not as nasty as we and others sometimes make us out to be... that, I beleive is the humanist perspective, and the correct one at that. Thanks for pointing that out.

Let it also be said that I say this as a very proud Pakistani myself.... The huge Pakistan flag in my office vouches for that (or does it?) ... Now that I work regularly in Baluchistan I appreciate more than ever the softness which is at the core of my rugged Baluchi friends, much like sweetness of Punjabi poetry that is often so surprising to those who have grown up stereotying Punjabi as a ``karakht`` language.... Like people, langauges too are all--yes all--infinitely sweet... just listen to a love song in Saraiki or Broshiski, and you will know what I am talking about!

In fact, I still tell people (here and there) that I live in Pakistan but spend 5 months holidays in Boston every six months!

With that out of the way, let me continue on my theme about all people beign good and our stereotyping being exactly that: stereotyping. I have had uninvited meals in the homes of the poorest favella-dwellers in Brazil, been invited into the mud huts of tribals in Hawange, Zimbabwe... more surprising to my friends in pakistan is the fact that my Jew Professors at school have showered more kindness on me than I ever deserved..... I have even smelt that sun while driving down the Italian Rivierra (but let`s leave that for another time!).... even more shocking is the warmth I have recieved in my few visits to India.... me a full blooded Punjabi daGGa, trying to buy some special type of emebroidered shalwar kameez in Canaught Place in Delhi and having a real hard time explaing exactly what my mother had wanted to the Bengali shopkeeper was interrupted by an elderly couple also in that shop who knew eactly what I (or rather my mother) was looking for and had the generosity of heart and spirit to taken me in their car to some shop they knoew of a full 20 minutes away (I admit there was a time during that drive when it crossed my mind that maybe I was being abducted!)... they proceeded then not only to find exactly what I was looking for but did not let me pay for it, saying ``Tell Behn Ji, its a gift from us!``

Their forced generosity was no different from the time in Mardan when I was forced to have lunch twice becuase both people I visited would not take NO for an answer.... in the last case I even had bhindi for the first and last time in my life just to make sure that my gun-totting (but immensely loving) hosts did not misunderstand my aversion to that particular vegetable fir an abuse of their hospitality :-)

I can also tell you about the Sikh immigration Officer at Delhi who slipped me in when I landed in India another time with less than complete papers (and that is a REALLY interesting story)..... but I won`t.... afterall, the point is not simply to surprise people with the fact that ``even`` Indians can be nice... the point is that all people are intrinsically good if you give them half a chance to open up and prove it to you (I, obviously, happen to be an exception to that rule......)

... I`ll wrap up now... have a class to teach!

ciao

gut wrenching.thank you for attempting to redeem us in our own eyes.

I think that your article touched a chord in me and my experiences in Pakistan. Despite all the negative publicity that the world enjoys to accord Pakistan, I have found that my trips back home are more fulfilling than any excursions to the Carribean or Europe. It is the people of Pakistan who make the difference and I think that for every bad tale we hear from Pakistan there are a hundred pleasant stories about personal experiences of the most remarkable kind. I can recall a few years ago when I bought a nan kebob from a passing vendor who approached our bus outside Lahore. Not having change I handed over a 500 rupee notr through the window. Despite the fact that the bus driver suddently started to set on his trip, this vendor put down his tray and ran after my bus to give me my food and my change through the window of the still moving bus. I`m sure that we all have our own stories to tell but I am glad that we can all share our own postive feelings about our hoemland.