Train to Pakistan 2004: The Tribute

Romair:
Here is one reason why Hindu Indians are apprehensive about their safety in Pakistan -Muslim Indians have no such fears- and it has nothing to do with the media or the state propaganda. The only memories they have of Pakistan is what they saw in Pakistan when they left the country and those are the memories they passed down to their children and grandchildren. They do not have any relative, friend or aquaintance left in Pakistan who can provide counter to this narrative. The few they who stayed behind were forced or felt compelled to become muslim, which did not help matters. Incidentally, I know a few Sindhi Hindus with relatives in Pakistan and they do not have such apprehensions, or at least not to that level.
The situation is different in Pakistan. While the children of Panjabi refugees had similar tales of horror to tell, most Pakistanis also have a friend or an aquaintance, if not a relative who has visited India once or more and can report back that the place is now safe for them. Moreover, the stereotype image of the Hindu projected in the Pakistani media - a daal-bhaaji eating coward (btw, I can read Urdu although the image comes across occasionally in the English press too!) - is not very threatening and quite the opposite of the stereotype of the `jihadi muslim` in India.
More visits by Hindus to Pakistan will provide an anti-dote to this image. I can tell you from an Indian experience. When I lived in Delhi, Karol Bagh, Patel Nagar and other refugee strongholds of Delhi were considered out-of-bound by Delhi muslims; one never saw a woman in burqa or a man in flowing beard. Then, a few visible muslims started to come to Karol Bagh for shopping and found out that their rupees were quite welcome there. And now, one is more likely to see a burqa in Karol Bagh than in Lahore`s Anarkali and Patel Nagar even has large muslim settlement. As more Hindus return from a safe visit to Pakistan, the old fears will likely dissipate.

Satyamvada # 26

(NHK, you fall into the same old game of playing ``equivalency``)

No. You are not right. If I am comparing the attitude of the security agencies, I am only comparing the attitude of the security agencies.

If I compare the UK immigration process, I am only doing that. And if I am comparing the Chinese industrial geowth, I am only doing that. I do not mean Pakistan is equal to UK or China.

May be we tend to get too sensitive on very minor issues.

# 33 Romair, Dost-mitter

Romair, I think Dost Mitter is right. I was a little surprised to find that Dost went to Peshawar & Khyber pass - in these days of Osama`s hunt & the area littered with spies & security people.

Frankly, I would have avoided despite my past military credentials and DG ISI an old school boy.

But the factors in his favour were the Canadian passport, Pakistani birth and family accompanying.

Also the tourism industry in the country is not well established where you simply hand your self over to a travel Package and keep seeing places. Making your own plan, arranging your own transportation etc is a difficult exercise even for the Pakistanis. If you know some one in Pakistan, there is no problem. Basically, only Frontier areas (Tribals) are unsafe.

I think we do not have as many street muggers, con man or pick pockets like some other countries.

nhk 35:- you are correct, Washington DC or Miami are probably scoring higher on the mugging and felonies than, say, Peshaware . . . but they do it without recourse to your religion/caste etcetc., and they have the media around too.


Kapitain 30:- I don`t like to generalise, but by and large, I find that those who didn`t lose anything, and may actually have benefited from others losing their all, tend to get more aggressive about the past. With those who have seen the horrors, the attitude is more like please let those who survived get along with our lives.

Satyamvada 29:- I think you refer to this . . . ````#18 An Indian in Pakistan on April 20, 2004
T-the-Boss, write up is not flowing as yet, also affairs of home and office front as well as workplace, but I have my notes alright . . . am placing a separate un-censored version after clearance from some of my friends here. ```` . . . I meant that I shall pre-clear some parts of my visit, since I did meet a few people in Pakistan who would be described as having sensitive positions and who helped in my getting some unique perspectives . . . and I may need to shield their identities as well as mix-n-match anecdotes. Observations shall be absolutely as I saw them, positive or negative. I did not say that they were only Pakistanis, there are non-Pakistanis I met in Pakistan, too.

Samundar 27 mere co-salt water:- it will have to be some of you Pakistanis abroad who go back to Pakistan and clean up the act, there will be a cost, no doubt, and sacrifice. I don`t think closing doors can help, nor is there any reason to be ashamed. Own up to facts, and that is enough for a scoiety, I think.

I think the best aspect for Pakistanis of having so many Indian middle class adrift in Pakistan in what was essentially one mass unstructured walkabout was that many lower-middle class Pakistanis suddenly aspire for things like 2-rupee newspapers and multiple chemist shops and cheaper schools teaching English and economic emancipation of women etcetc . . .and most of all, some amount of a multi-cultural society. (I would think, without any proof, that less than 33% of the Indian visitors actually even went near a cricket stadium, at least for the Tests . . .and if they don`t talk about it, then it is because they want their next visa too, even I am not going to write about certain parts of my trip for exactly that reason!!)

Sobia 24:- sorry, wasnt really checking internet too often, Insha Allah I will make my next trip in some comfort and also set up meetings with chowkies.

Storyteller 25:- yes, 3000 Sikhs adrift in Pindi . . .incidentally, the Sikh jathas managed to persuade both IR & PR that the same PR rake that brought them till the border was going to carry the whole lot till Amritsar. They got their way on that. From what I heard, after that, once the PR train reached Amritsar Station, the elderly people in the jatha literally forced the PR drivers / conductors / guards et al to enjoy the hospitality of the city, thus delaying the return of the rake to Attari/Wagah, thus delaying our entry into Pakistan admirably. These are small pointers.

NHK 21:- Kashmir seems to be a big time issue on the streets of Islamabad, and not just with the fundoos.

Thank you everybody . . . I hope to have the next segment out in a bit . . . as of now most people like what I say because . . . well because. Promise to start bringing out some hard truths soon, will you think the same of me because of what I am or because of the colour of my writing then?

plats #32 If these were real tears, it would be different. But these are crocodile tears. The same tears that urstruly used to shed about kashmiri women being raped, and the same tears that Jay sheds about honor killings in Pakistan.

These are the crocodile tears of a individuals who bent on scoring their stupid pakistan vs india points on one another. These tears are an insult to the dignity of those women who were actually raped, and of the individuals who were actually killed. These are the tears of those who are the same as the murderers and rapists themselves to the extent that they have no regard or respect for fellow human beings. That is why I get mad at these hypocrites.

Vereesh #12:``first of all, please send me an email at veeresh@chowk.com towards any back-up or logistical support required in India before/during your trip . . .``

FV #19: ``But seriously, do let us know when you visit. Veeresh is more likely to be a help since he lives in Delhi, and no one bothers to come to my Mumbai :( But if you do (Jinnah`s house!), get in touch at farzanavee@yahoo.com``

Thanks for the offers.

As a young teenager, my interest in meeting Indians centered around Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Sandeep Patil, Viswanath etc. Would that have taken me to Delhi? As an elder teeanger and a twenty-something, it moved onto Tina Monim, Zeenat Aman, Sangeeta Bijlani and Ashwariya Rai. Would that have taken me to Mumbai?

Now, perhaps since I have realized that my dreams of becoming a sports star will remain unfiulfilled regardless of how many hours I spent at the local squash court, and perhaps since I have been married for too long, my interests have shifted to individuals like Premji, Murthy, Tata and Rekhi. I suppose that would take me to Bangalore.

Which is where I will be going. So if you can hook me up with someone there, it would be greatly appreciated.

Or if you can hook me up with front row seats to a Daler Mehndi or Jagjit Singh concert (or a seat on a live shooting of an Ashwariya Rai movie). That is what it will take to, ``overwhelm`` me.

I am actually consulting for a company, currently, which is run by two young Indians. They fit into the profile of the guy in Hollywood/Bollywood, i.e. young multi-millionaire entreprenuers. They are going to open up an off-shore practice. So if they want me to be a part of it, I will probably be in India regularly. If not, then I will probably be there every now and then - once every year or two.

In any case, I am quite a boring and conservative guy to be around. My father is the real party animal. He will probably be travelling around to the cities he lived in. So he may end up in your cities.......

Hi Veeresh,

Nice piece and hope to read the next instalment... and my condolences on your fathers death. I have always been wanting to ask you one thing... Are you the same guy who use to come on ``Good Morning India`` to show us what to look for while buying a second hand car?... and I still remember a very friendly bearded guy doling out tips on maintaining cars (I apologise if you are not)...

As a sailor you may have been to Barcelona, my current abode. If you happen to come there again let me know... the churitos and claras is on me.

R

Veeresh: Finally read your article. Very well written and entertaining, and look forward to the continuation. Some things of interest I found were your thoughts on ``thousands of sikhs running around rawalpindi``: rawalpindi being the place I grew up in (most of the time, since my father was posted around different cantonments during his career), i too wondered what it would be like. while one could see an odd sikh or two in lahore sometimes, i dont recall ever seeing one in rawalpindi. So, to see sikhs there again would be a bit like ``back to the future``.

I find it interesting that no one has yet commented on the policy of not allowing people to simply drive their cars through the border, given the inconvenience to passengers. This will no doubt happen in due course - although anything that is to the convenience of Citizen Joe is not high on the priority list of the babus of south asia i think.

You mentioned your parents are from jhang. After partition, my maternal grandfather received a house in jhang (``evacuee property`` or something, as it was called) in return for the home he left behind in India. It was a very nice house, very traditional and with a large courtyard. I havent visited it in decades given that my grandparents died in the 1960`s, but last year we (self, siblings, cousins) finally sold the house to a local fellow who used to run a small flour-making mill in jhang and may well have known your family. It is quite possible that the house belonged to your family, which would be interesting since I often wondered when young of the hindu family that owned the house and used to feel really sorry for them being forced to leave such a nice house where they must have had a lot of memories (as my parents did of our ancestral house in india). I can try to find out the address and will let you know in case it helps identify if this was your house.

All this evacuee property talk reminds me of something ...

My mothers family is from Mymensing in Bangladesh. One fine day in the late seventies or early eighties we suddenly got a cheque in my mothers maiden name for a few rupees. Most amazing was that the name of the goverment department issuing that cheque, it was called, hold your breath: The ``Enemy property division`` of the Bangladesh goverment.

On further inquiry we found out that my mom`s ancestral home was being used as some goverment office or school and the Bangladesh goverment was paying us rent for this. This rent when split among all the brothers and descendents came to but a few rupees per head. What amazes me is that the breaucracy was able to track down the descendents of the original owners of that house, who were now spread all across India, just for the few rupees. We received just a few cheques before they stopped coming, just as suddenly as they had started.

There is a real nice movie by Mira Nair, ``Missisippi Masala`` which is about a Ugandan Indian family driven out by Idi Amin. The patriach (played by Roshan Sheth) still has dreams of getting back his property in Uganda by filing cases in the high court in Kampala.

Maybe someday, when my delusions get the better of me, I`ll stand in Dacca High court ``Milord... ``

tahmed32 40:- yes, even I want to try towards driving a car into Pakistan as easily as I can into, say, Nepal. Which means, after Customs & Immigration, I pick up additional insurance and pay additional road tax at a point a few metres into the other country, then pick up the required ``emission check under control`` certificate yet another few metres in, and then tag a temporary local registration to the original one, and on my way.

Will let you know about the Jhung addresses in a bit . . . and shall surely want to touch base with you next time I am in Pakistan. Thanks for the inputs. Now I just got to find the blokes who got our lands, and can then retire to a feudal lifestyle.

yossarian 39:- yup, that was me, thanks for remembering. barcelona, wicked city, yes I`ve been there long long ago, the chiquitas is what it was then.

Just going to bring something over from another board . . .

Veeresh wrote ``“I think the best aspect for Pakistanis of having so many Indian middle class adrift in Pakistan in what was essentially one mass unstructured walkabout was that many lower-middle class Pakistanis suddenly aspire for things like 2-rupee newspapers and multiple chemist shops and cheaper schools teaching English and economic emancipation of women etcetc . . .and most of all, some amount of a multi-cultural society . . . ”

Waiting to board a flight recently, I walked into a bookstore to buy something to read on the plane. Scanning the rows of magazines, OutlookIndia caught my eye. 3 dirhams. Yup, definitely. Turned out to be great value for money and am now a regular reader, what with the free online edition too, the latest issue of which, incidentally, carries a copy of this article.

Why don`t we as Pakistanis demand more value for our money?

Ansari:
The low price of newspapers in India have come at a price; and the price is that the editor in India has surrendered to the marketing manager. The Indian newspaper is not only cheaper, it also a lot bulkier and the bulk, alas, is full of advertisements and the stuff that really belongs in cheap tabloids - chat-patti stories about entertainment world and local celebrities or what is known as `page 3` in India. In Pakistan, ads probably make up for less than a third of the newspaper; in India they probably make three-fourths or more, not including the area-specific ads inserted in newspapers. The news is only secondary in newspapers, even the lead story not getting more than a couple of paragraphs (and that too sometimes summarised into a boxed highlight). One can get more in-depth reporting on TV channels these days than the Indian newspapers.
So, be careful what you wish for, you might get it!

Mittar-jee: I can`t speak for Indian newspapers because I haven`t read any. I have however read Pakistani ones and they aren`t particularly good. In fact, it`s enough to put you off newspapers altogether. Which is just as well. I have 12 extra rupees a day to myself now. [Chowk ``experts`` tell me all that I need to know anyways . . . ;o) ]

Outlook on the other hand was an enjoyable read. I`ve looked for it in bookstores here lekin apart from the usual Stardust and Filmfare we don`t seem to import any other Indian magazines. Aur Filmfare bhi do sau pachaas rupay ka hai.

Dost Mittar 44 . . . sirji, you are correct about the merchandising aspect of many newspapers/magazines in India . . . but even then, The Hindu sells for 2 or 3 rupees and has probably the best researched content, The Indian Express likewise, Outlook you`ve mentioned is eminent value for 15/-, and the vernacular press is where the action really lies.

At 1.50 for TOI or HT, purchase price new is very close to kabaddi price resale. There is a truth in that somewhere!!

Why don`t Pakistanis demand better value for money? You tell me, Ansari?

Veeresh: right now I think it`s the garmi. It`s just too hot to bother . . . Lekin seriously, I think they need to, at least as far as this is concerned. It`s criminal how much books and newspapers cost in this country. Liberty Books has the monopoly on most of the stuff brought in from abroad and they mercilessly fleece us over them. Buy a book aur paanch sau rupay tau kahin nahin gae. What`s worse is that the books imported from India are marked at almost double the value sometimes. Jhumpa Lahiri`s The Namesake ka Indian edition 375, ya 395, ka tha, aur yahan pe 675 ka baech rahay thay. It`s outrageous.

There is no system really to keep these people in check. What we really need is a strong consumer body willing to assert itself on the market. But then we haven`t really been a community of readers. Maybe that`s why we don`t have too many good libraries here either. But that`s not really important. I think it`s just that as consumers we`re too docile and unimaginative. There needs to be more free market activity, more active consumerism so that the next time you go into a bookstore it`s a three story complex with cosy arm chairs and soft jazz and a little cafe serving capuccino because the store manager knows that if he doesn`t offer you all that you`ll just go down the street to the next store that does.

veeresh, Ansari:
Yes, my observations are based on HT and TOI which I saw in India. And, yes, in addition to selling it at the price of the newsprint, they also give attractive giveaways to pry the rival`s subscribers from it. My old favourite, The Statesman, seems to have almost disappeared from the scene, despite an impressive new building it has built for itself in place of the stately old building in Con. Place. My view is that if the newspapers have to compete with the instant news provided by TV channels, they can only do so by adding value to the news, i.e., more in-depth analysis and investigative journalism, something that weekly magazines seem to be doing in India.

...Filmfare for Rs. 250? who`s buying it when you can get all the masala you want in your 2-rupee newspaper?