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Friendship beyond borders
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Visit Karachi and one realises the fashionable people there would not be out of place in Paris or Milan
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CITY OF STYLE A fashion show at Karachi
I was between Islamabad and London, just east of Dushanbe heading towards Tashkent, flying over the Himalayas for about half an hour. The view from the window was without question one of the most beautiful on the planet. I knew that the Himalayas were vast, but I never imagined the rows of snow-capped mountains, stretching as far as I could see.
I always wondered why people made such a hue and cry about the Silk Route. Now I know. The great warriors who crossed the Himalayas in the past must have been strong, brave and indeed, exceptionally stupid to attempt this feat.
I could tell that Pakistan was going to be nothing like I had imagined, even before landing in Karachi. Like any reasonable Sindhi would do on his first visit to Karachi, I spent the better part of my first evening on a wild goose chase to find my family's pre-1947 home and office building.
After accepting that finding the street was as close as I was likely to get, I made my way to the local equivalent of Barista or Café Coffee Day, frequented by the hip and happening of Karachi.
It was hard to reconcile what I saw with what one would expect to see in Pakistan — the place and the people there would not have been out of place in Paris or Milan with their exceptional sense of fashion and level of social freedom.
The women were dressed in a manner that seemed straight out of the pages of the Cosmo and almost all of them were smoking in public.
Coming from Chennai where nightclubs get shut down at the slightest pretext, this was not what I expected to see in an Islamic state.
Islamabad was born in the 1960s when Pakistan decided to move its capital from Karachi to a new city to be set up at the edge of the cantonment of Rawalpindi. Should you be brought to Islamabad blind-folded, you would never imagine you are in Pakistan.
In fact, you wouldn't guess you are in South Asia or even a Third World nation. All you see are fast highways, broad streets, swanky hotels, huge houses and everything typical of the developed world. Add a backdrop of mountains and you have city that's remarkably close to perfect.
I had the opportunity to attend a party hosted by one of the leading local families. In the three hours I was there, I met former investment bankers from New York and London now working with the government or NGOs, PhDs from top global universities doing research on Pakistan's past and future, consultants, industrialists and politicians. People were thrilled that an Indian national had come to Pakistan to do business: Most of them had travelled to India several times but saw few visitors from our side making the corresponding journey.
The `preferred' status of Indian nationals in Pakistan required me to register with the local police in every city on arrival as well as get permission to depart.
When I needed to get a copy of my visa, the person manning the copy machine noted that I was holding an Indian passport and asked which part of India I was from.
Warm and friendly
After a brief conversation, when I tried to pay for the copies, he refused to take any money saying that I was guest in his country. A little later, when I tried to pay a soft drink vendor for my Coke, I got the same response.
After these incidents, I needed no more proof that the conflict between our two countries is unjustifiable. Even for an educated person, it's hard not to buy into the `blame Pakistan for everything' propaganda.
But when the common man on the street, who knows little or nothing about politics or international relations, sees a random Indian as a long-lost brother, it's clearly time to sort out the mess.
In Pakistan, you don't stand out. Unless told, no one would ever be able to tell that you are Indian — we look the same and speak the same language. But if you do chose to disclose your nationality, people really warm up to you — especially if you happen to be Sindhi and a grandson of Karachi's soil.
About half the people I met were originally from India and felt the same way about Delhi or Mumbai as I feel about Karachi.
Like me, they simply cannot understand why Indians and Pakistanis are not best of friends and made every effort to be nice to the one Indian who was in front of them. Like me, they fully understood the vast potential for trade and other exchanges between the countries.
And like me, they knew that the politics of the situation would not allow this to happen for many years to come.
MANAV FUTNANI
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