To Indo-Pak peace and women's rights

Hey Chintan!

You must be away on your whirlwind India tour and enjoying working and having a good time in the mountains. And I thought it was high time I took my turn to blog; it was just that I couldn’t think of a lot to write about.

The past two weeks have given a lot of people from both sides of the border both extremes: reasons to be ecstatic followed by utter depression, dismay and frustration.  First the happy part! Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to India on the invitation of his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi for the latter’s inauguration was probably the best thing to have happened between the two countries in a long time. The visit and the conduct of both leaders towards each other gave a lot of us much happiness and joy, thinking this could be an opportunity for restarting the stalled dialogue and peace process between Pakistan and India.

My personal take on this visit and the meeting of the leaders is that following the announcement of PM Sharif’s acceptance of the invitation there was a lot of joy around. But shortly after, many realised that there isn’t going to be a long, one-to-one meeting that could be called ‘dialogue’ per se between the two, however, it wouldn’t be wrong to assume the short meeting that took place could be a prelude to more detailed and formal processes in the future that cold lead to the much-sought peace between the two countries. All that in itself seemed quite promising and I for one was overjoyed at the presence of PM Sharif in India and how both leaders conducted themselves and that they had resolved to resume the stalled dialogue process. Here’s hoping it’s a new beginning to a much friendlier South Asia.

Another exciting part of all this was that I was invited by an online Indian news channel, www.indiapostlive.com, to participate in a live show about the invitation to PM Sharif by PM Modi. Here’s the link: http://indiapostlive.com/modi-invites-sharif/. I wish I could be there live but due to my idiotic work hours I managed to send in a recorded video message that they included. Some other show maybe!

Now for the distressing part. All the positivity had not yet subsided when that gruesome incident in Lahore happened. Shockingly, a woman was bludgeonedto death by bricks by none other than her father, brother and other male members of her family for marrying the man she loved. While the story is undergoing twists and turns as I write this, the basic fact that she was murdered in broad daylight and that too in front of Lahore High Court while people watched like bloody spectators. The father turned himself in and proudly confessed to the murder, saying she had been killed for ‘honour’.

This term ‘honour killing’ always freaks me out. WHAT honour are you talking about in a killing? Bloody uneducated, feudal, male chauvinistic lunatics! And this wasn’t the first such case. Many women have been and are killed for ‘honour’ almost everyday while nobody can do much about them because it’s the family that does it. And then there are rapes happening every single bloody day, regardless of a girl’s age, even as little as 2 or maybe 7 or 8. Gosh!! Even writing about it is giving me shivers. It’s scared and depressed the shit out of me.

Then probably the next day there were tow other news, India and Malaysia. Two Dalit girls, gang-raped, killed and hanged from a tree in India! And a 15-year-old girl gang-raped by 37 or 38 frikkin’ men in Malaysia. For heaven’s sake!!! If we weren’t troubled enough already. What is happening in this world? Is this all a girl/woman has been reduced to? Mere objects of desire, means for sexual pleasure, victims of tribal/feudal customs, exhibit power? Really? Do they cease to be human beings?

Education, which is also a topic we are expected to discuss this month under the BPP syllabus, is key I feel. But the sad part is a whole lot educated people are as misogynist, bigoted, male chauvinistic as their rural or uneducated counterparts. So what do we do? Educating men in this part of the world or maybe anywhere wouldn’t stop rapes or sexual abuse. So what would? I get speechless when asked this question. Even when I think for myself I can’t come up with a solution. This trend doesn’t seem to decrease, yaar! Ufff so it’s been a very very depressing one week, and so far it continues to be as more horrifying cases come up.

So anyway, that was my part of the rant. And that’s all that’s been consuming my thoughts for now. 

Here’s hoping for a better and friendlier future for Pakistan and India. And a peaceful world for women to live in where they feel secure, loved and can take their decisions themselves. More power to women! 

Cheers!

P.S. I'm quite excited about a cousin's nikah coming up in two weeks. Yay!!!

Young people bringing in the change

Dear Sheroo

It brings me so much joy to be able to write to you again. It has been almost a month since our collaborative blog has been parched for an update :p Before sitting down to write this, I read your last post again, and realized how much has happened between the writing of that post and this particular moment. And one of the most significant things that happened was that we eventually met, after all these months of corresponding over email, Facebook and Twitter, and having the occasional brief phone conversation.

I am glad I got the opportunity to visit Pakistan for the third time, thanks to the organizers of the Children's Literature Festival and the Teachers' Literature Festival in Islamabad who invited me as a speaker and workshop facilitator. And owing to the generosity of the Pakistan High Commission, I was also able to get city visas for Lahore, Rawalpindi and Karachi. There is so much that I treasure from this trip. I had the most amazing time there, interacting with children and teachers, meeting old friends, making new ones, and visiting places that I have been meaning to for a long time.

 I am glad we could meet so many times during the short period I was there for. It would not have been possible had you not been so flexible about your timings. Your work involves night shifts but you gave up a lot of your daytime sleep to be able to meet up. That meant a lot to me. There is something quite special about meeting someone in person, as opposed to online interaction, isn't it? I remember us saying to each other that it did not seem like we were meeting for the first time. It seemed like we had known each other for several years. 

I enjoyed being taken to some of your favourite restaurants, and also watching that film with you. Speaking of the film, Revolver Rani was crazy, wasn't it? We started off liking it, imagining that it would turn out to be a really cool spoof of sorts. However, it let us down terribly. Do you remember I told you I had a hunch that it wasn't going to be a very good film? Nevertheless, I did want to watch a Bollywood flick with you, considering how often we talk about movies. To be fair, the popcorn at the movie hall was good :p

 Before setting out for Pakistan, I was wondering what I would get you as a gift. A kurta maybe, a movie poster, a coffee mug with local motifs, a book perhaps. Those were the things I was thinking of but you said, "Chintan, bring me an Indian God." It is quite interesting that you said so. I knew what I would bring along soon as I heard that. The Ganesha I gifted you was bought years ago in Pondicherry, a seaside town I love going to every once in a while. I spotted it on a makeshift stall set up near a lovely temple called Manakula Vinayagar Kovil. That temple also has an elephant called Lakshmi right outside, heaping blessings on those who offer money that is passed on to the caretaker :-)

I loved what you gifted me - a tasbeeh. It is amazing how this particular object is used by people from so many spiritual traditions to build concentration or as an aid to chanting and prayer. Muslims use it, Christians do, and so do Hindus, Jains and Buddhists as well. This is precious, for three reasons: 1. It came from you. 2. Your ammi helped you pick this one for me. 3. I believe in the power of good wishes, healing intentions and blessings.

 Before I conclude this post, I feel like sharing something I was musing about just a few hours ago. It was a late Saturday evening, and I was watching the film Veer-Zaara
 on television along with my parents. This is a movie I saw years ago when it released in cinema halls, and I remember not being too impressed. However, my experience of it this evening was quite different. I have visited Lahore thrice, and that has made all the difference. Much of what I would have earlier dismissed as soppy really tugged at my heart. The violence of the lines that divide us, the suspicion in people's minds, the futility of our long-standing feuds, the suffering of divided families and innocent folks languishing in prisons on both sides - it hit me hard, once again. What really stayed with me is something that Zakir Ahmed (played by Anupam Kher) tells Saamiya Siddiqui (played by Rani Mukerji) at the very end - "Tum jaise naujawan in dono mulqon ki takdeer badlenge." (Translation: 'It is young people like you who will transform the destiny of these two nations.") So true! We are at it, already!