Remember the home you spent your childhood summer holidays in? The one where you spent all afternoons running around trees or plucking fruits or throwing stones or whatever the hell it is you did as a kid. The one which makes you smile when you think about it. The place you can almost smell or feel on certain days- Yes, THAT house.
Now imagine you are told that it doesnt belong to your country anymore. You are political enemies now and since you are a potential threat to that country you will never ever be allowed to go back and visit. No, not even for one evening; not if you plead with the authorities that you just want to see the place you grew up in and have no intention of blowing it up-your cousins live there, for heaven's sake. You apply and reapply in the hope that they might see sense but you are denied a visa every single time.
While you are imagining this, there are some people for whom its true.
We met one such person. Z, a Pakistani colleague who was born in India, whose cousins are in India. When we were introduced to him as our "friendly neighbour" , I am ashamed to admit that I wondered if Indians and Pakistanis would be polite towards each other. I imagined it would be like putting Jesus and Mohammed in the same room and asking them to do some friendly networking. However, my apprehensions lasted for about ten seconds. The India team got along with him like a house on fire- his opening line to us was " Oh my god what are you guys doing to the West Indies". I was so happy and relieved- its not as if I thought he was a terrorist and I am not a big fan of patriosim and nationalism either. But the media has so deeply drilled the India Pakistan enmity into us, that even I was swayed. Conned into believing that maybe there was a fundamental difference between the two countries that went beyond political wars and trickery. And while I know that I am basing my judgements on the whole country by this one person I am now fully convinced that we are essentially same the kind of people and the only thing that seperates us are political borders.( Of course, i knew it theoretically always, but now I feel it) Even the borders werent much of an issue in the early days, apparently.Until the 1960s, it was easy to go from India to Pakistan. Z's parents would pack their bags and decide to go to their cousins place in India on a whim.
But then we had to have a war. And create a situation where a Pakistani needs a visa for every city he wants to visit. (Did you know that? Pakistanis have city-specific visas for India)
And thus it is that our friend Z could never ever visit his childhood home unfortunately located in the sacred hotspot of Varnasi Its even sadder to think that in a decade or two, there will be no one with these memories, no images of childhood spent in India that makes them so open to meeting Indians. We would have a generation which grew up amidst war, listening to stories of how Pakistanis killed their relatives and what not. A generation which has no pleasant associations with Pakistan.
I am tempted to be cynical and say they are doomed, but who knows-Maybe they too will meet their Z equivalents and experience the joy of having their beliefs shattered, to their pleasant surprise. After all, I belong to that generation and I have never meant "It was a pleasure to meet you" as much as I did with Z.
