Hidden Hindus

Sadna #115

In your new face in Chowk, how many times I have made attack on you. Say in last one month.

And I have stated a fact that if anyone on this forum has some other objective rather than discussion, it is a great injustice to all interactors.

Hope this clarifies.

That is between you and YLH, and I read both.

Sadna

Dear Madam,

I have not attacked you personally so dont in future try this low down dirty trick please.

This seems to be a repeat of your perfomance on the other thread where you kept making strawman fallacies out of my arguments and fighting them.

And then you chose to insult me in rather creative terms.

Yasser Hamdani

veeresh #94:

since the others are too busy to ask... could you donate some khaki chaddees this way? you see, we might not be able afford our own. and could you make sure the sizes are XXL? your chaddee wearers have such... ummm... SMART figures, their sizes probably won`t fit around the waists of our men. and one more thing... the ladies might have a problem with chaddees, so could you donate something else for them? maybe a khaki shuttlecock burqa?

CHOWK STAFF

Please remove this article.

shandana minhas

slink # 120

It is indeed unfortunate that plight of “Hidden” Pakistani Hindus has gone unnoticed on chowk. However, it does not surprise me at all. Pakistanis who have had little or no experience of interacting with this minority dominate this place (chowk).
I have three Pakistani Hindu friends. Ramesh and Sunil lawlani & Sunil’s wife Gita lalwani. They come from Ghotki in Sindh. They are the only friends I have who speak my mother tongue in this strange far away land. They lost two younger brothers in Karachi. Their shop was burned and looted, and one brother shot during the ethno-linguistic violence. Some religious zealots also murdered the other one in Karachi.
I feel ashamed when they treat me with respect despite what has happened to them in Pakistan. They have never complained to me about the loss of their brothers. However, they often complain about the general unfair treatment of Hindus in Pakistan. They tell me that they were scared to use their Hindu names while traveling within Pakistan – the country of their birth. How difficult it was for them during the army operation in Sindh.

They get so excited when Pakistani cricket team does well. They have so much love for the place where they were born. There is no need for them to seek out Pakistanis, as there are so many Sindhis here from India. But they go out of their way to be with us. They feel most happy when they are in the company of Pakistani Sindhis. I don’t speak my mother tongue very well, but it sound very sweet, especially when Gita speaks Sindhi, she reminds me of my cousin sisters.

Two years ago, a Pakistani student from Lahore came and stayed in the same apartment building where they live. He had a long beard and no mustache. He was here on a scholarship from Government of Pakistan. He would often use their phone to ring his family in Pakistan. He used their car. And he used their contacts to find a part time job.

One day, while I was there, he came in and asked them if he could use their car. Sunil handed him the key, and at the same time asked him to stay as the tea was ready and Gita has made somosas. This man’s face changed, and he quite rudely said, “it is haram for us Muslims to eat your food”.

I-T PROWESS,

Pakistanis are determined to take their country to the 21st, eventhough they are still strugling with the Y1K problem of how to control jihad. This jihadic influence appear to have clouded their selection of the top IT university for colaboration. From nation of today,

First campus of IT varsity to open next month with $6m investment

ISLAMABAD - Girn American University of the Northern Cyprus will be opening up its first ever virtual IT campus in Islamabad with the aim of helping Pakistan become part of global e-learning community in the coming month with an initial investment of $6 million. This was disclosed by

///with gradustes of the gern, streaming out, pakistan future is secure, at least for the time being, till the ``taliban jinn tech university`` opens its doors.

RAW and ISI,

Many an argosies of indo pak peace have hit the icebergs of jihadic bias on the chowk. I recall amit, to some extent narain abandon their hope and optimism, either to walk away, or to abandon any semblance of understnading and fellowship with the chowk pakistanis.

Submerged in the pak verbiage is the K for kafir ideology, which surfaces at the moment rationality takes leave. With in a day of Islamabad bombing, using a fruit truck from taliban kabul, CE remarks that it is a RAW job. If it is true, RAW should be well and truely proud of, may be mosad has to learn from the indians. From CE to the lowest life forms in pakistan, indians always show the way, they are the force behind anything, may be even the 3NT.

The faceless lynch mob of the chowk is out .

re: er, what ?

I can`t decide if this is tragically funny or just tragic. I mean anyone who has paid the slightest attention to the article itself would have to wonder whether the interactors have even glanced at it.

quite quite mad.

Re Slink # 120

Courage Slink!

I agree with you completely that this article of yours and its intent has been mis-argued by the people who are so blinded by hate of each other that it is pathetic.

Slink, take this article and the one on a joint Indo-Pak history text book and you will find that the only thing, which unites us, Pakistanis and Indians, is hate. We feed off each others hate! The reaction, which your article got should was an accepted one on Chowk.

I think that Purple was right when in his/her post s/he suggested that people did not even bother to read the article before before reacting tho their knee-jerk phobias and myopias.

I was really dismayed to read your post suggesting that the Chowk staff retract your article. That, my friend, is conduct unbecoming your character! I have never seen you so agiated and I am certain you must have been really disgusted by the replies posted.

If it is any comfort, there are a lot of people on Chowk, from both sides, who applaud your article as a pioneering attempt to highlight the plight of the Hindus community of Pakistan. Please do not give up the fight and vacate the arena. We need more people like you, who can articulate human empathy instead of santifying hate, in South Asia if we are to amend our erring ways of the past.

If a water fall can start with a single drop of water, one person`s ability to change another person`s perceptions can change the world. The most powerful weapon in this world is the power of the human mind and those who know how to wield it, will be the ones who will sieze the future.

My friend, have courage to tread the path you have opted for knowing that it is really hard, specially, when you are the one leading yourself by the compass of your own convictions and the directions of your personal conscience!

Ciao!

slink #re 120

Your disappointment is understandable. There are elements here who will make ``s/h/it`` out of anything. The discussion ought to have be high on emotions centering around nothing but human life but then..

There are many chowkwallahs who indulge in meaningful discussion with out any slander or accusations. But like in real life they have taken a beating, migrated to other articles or chosen to remain silent spectators.

While ``who barks loudest`` contest continues in almost all articles.

But your request is harsh by any standards.

fairdinkum #re 121

Very nice post. It was touching, almost like a short story. Some people can be very disgusting and the irony is you cannot disown them; particularly when they are our own people. How I wish we could!

Just because India does not treat Muslms well { agreed for a moment } how can anybody justify the treatment meted to hindus there? Or in reverse can Indians justify... NO.

We must treat our people well just for what they actually are: Human Beings. If it means crticizing my country, my people, my religion then there`s nothing wrong with it.

Jay #re summing all your posts in all the articles

You write well, no doubt. BUT why can`t you discuss the relevant topic. if you want to have a one to one fight,then chose another arena for yourself. If you think u r putting anybody down here then you are only amusing yourself. It`s not as simple as that. Your posts can be much better and lively; you can discuss the same things albiet in a different manner..try..try once.

Sadhana

Aapko kya ho gaya?

Aap tho aisey na the..? :(

Keechad mein pathar phenkogi, tho chheetein tum par bhi girengi.

Move on.

Pullu

KRashid,

Post#114

Please dont talk about projection. Ever since I`ve known your posts on Chowk, you have nothing but hateful & derisive about India. So your original opinion of India has never been good to begin with. In fact,putting down India ,esp Hindus, is so second nature to you, you dont even realise how insulting you are. Not that we give a damn about what you feel about our country.

What gauls me is how you stand up in righteous indignation whenever an Indian gives you a taste of your own medicine.

If you live in a glass house, dont throw stones at others.

Shandana(#120): I share your frustration for both the quality and contents of responses to one very good thought provoking article. I thank you for posting your article here because I missed reading it at TFT.

It is naive for many people to think that their name callings, personal attacks, spamming and overly aggressive attitude by cluttering the response section will somehow be rewarded by more people choosing to interact with them. Let me utter it plainly; it is a big turn off. I am certain most people just look at the respondent alias and ignore it right away. I can say the same for 588 messages to a very nice review by Rahil Khan. The best strategy to stop this stampede is to not response.

The plight of Bhels (Bhils in India), is probably the most distressful and disturbing among many of the discriminations going on in our part of the world. The cases of Christian, Ahmadis, honor-killing are much less than what goes on with a whole class of people on routine basis. They are mostly bonded laborers and live under terrible conditions, as bad as slaves during the medieval times. They are often chained while at work and even chained to poles at night for the fear of running away. A small debt taken even out by their grandparents is exaggeratingly inflated which they can never pay-off to the land owning class of their masters. Murdering or raping their women does not make it to any media outlet. Hina Gilani is one of the few Human Rights Activists who talk about them.

Bhels are low caste Hindus with nomadic life style. They are found at the border regions of Sindh, Gujrat and Rajisthan. Sindhis do not consider Sindhi enough, Rajisthan does not consider them Rajput enough and Gujrat does not consider them Gujjus. Even before the partition, Sindhi Hindus from business community and upper caste hindus did not do anything for Bhels and same can be said of modern day Hindu population of Sindh.

Muslims in general accept Christians and Jews as the people of the ``Book`` but most do not have similar feeling toward Hindus, even if they may be their cousins going back to 10-12 generations. It has been influencing inter-religious relationship terribly from the Muslims side. Compare a Pakistani Muslim marrying a white Christian or Jew versus marrying a Hindu girl. The guy with Christian or Jewish wife will present her as a coveted trophy to his folks (during his trips to Pakistan). He would often say, there were so many white guys after her but she chose me because she fell in love with me. The reality may be that you were the only hope for her. Now, on the other hand, I happen to know couple of Pakistanis married to Hindu girls. They take their wives to Pakistan on Passports with fake Muslim names. They try to hide her religion as much as possible and try their best, almost apologetically, to convince their folks that she really does not care about her religion and the children would be Muslim. What a double stadard?

I have also known Hindu men with Muslim wives. They are, at best, very liberal minded with religion.

You propogandists should take a break from this mindless bickering once in a while and think about this:

Heard a 70-year old lady from India say the other day that life was in some ways better when the Brits were around. Corruption was limited, disease was checked, civil hygiene was maintained, and trains ran on time. How sad it is that the subcontinent is now in such a pathetic and unhuman state that independence is secondary to dignified survival. Disgusting. For all our posturing and claims to fame, most of Pakistan and India are now the filthiest places on earth.

And neither country could do more than a bronze medal in Sydney while tiny, starving African countries won 5 or 6 times as many.

Hang your heads in shame because that Taj Mahal and a hundred IT billionaires are shadowed by the stench of urine in our airports and the plight of over half of our illiterate population.

ylh....

``Reply #: 82 ylh

You have the nerve ... after what your kind did to me on the other thread... I think you can see for yourself how your brethren started attacking me on that thread when I hadnt gone personal yet (ie till reply 362)``

may be u can start by enlightening me on what u mean by my kind. as far as i can remember i have never physically met u or seen u and even our interactions on the net have been very limited. so now aren`t u the one making genralizations.

and as far as attacking u personally is concerned, i think u can go back to my post in the concerned thread and see for your self why it happened.

``With that said, I really dont care if your kind has any respect for Pakistanis or not ... not like we are talking about humans ... stick to the topic or just leave!``

my friend, if we r not humans, then i`m sure there`s no word in the dictionary to describe u.

and as far as leaving is concerned, chowk is not your private property as very well written by someone on this thread.

a sincere advice....u dish out garbage, u`ll get back garbage. (i hop[e u understand this)

krashid...reply 112...

u r right mate. my respect or disrespect does not have any significance. but it is unimportant people like me who when collectively believe in something that issues start assuming significance.

now if ylh (reply 48, i think) can have respect for all indians only because of one of his indian friend, then isn`t it very much possible that someone else can have disrespect for pakistanis just because of ylh.

``People might respect you in your country because of a very good human rights record in Punjab, Kashmir Assam etc. ``

and as far as human rights is concerned, lets not wash our dirty linens in public. the human rights record in your country is as good if not better than my country.

take care

devkant.

RE: Ferozk # 125

Whereas I agree with the encouragement part of your post, I disagree with the conclusions that you are drawing out of the interacts. Lets explore the following possibilities:

1. Most or atleast a good number of interactors are bigots blinded by hate and they wont let such an effort to be successful (your contention). OR if they are not bigots then they do not know how to interact.

2. Author has failed to make a case. She was not able to convey the message that she intended or probably she failed to clarify her objectives that she intended to achieve through this article. A lack of interacts on her part suggests that she did not want to direct this discussion. So the discussion followed a ``natural`` course (of its own).

3. May be that was the best that this article could deliver.

I am under the impression that Chowk is a utopian dream come true, where everybody is free to present their opinion. I think a bigot has an opinion too.

Pullu, Shandana

I tried expressing my thoughts on the article in a single post #21. It seems to have caused a lot of offense, but if you expect me to keep taking crap quietly just to keep these boards pristine and pure for more crap, I`m sorry I`m not your person.
I am taking your advice and moving on.

Sadhana