Comment by Riaz Haq on April 25, 2014 at 8:14pm

Here's The Hindu on Shobha De's visit to Islamabad:

Shobhaa De, author and columnist, said here on Friday that she had not encountered even a moment of hostility in Pakistan. It was all hospitality and no hostility, she added.

Ms. De is here to attend the second Islamabad Literature Festival organised by the Oxford University Press.The three-day festival, which will showcase some of the best writers in Pakistan, has Ms. De, Ritu Menon, writer and publisher, and a group performing Dastangoi, an Urdu storytelling art form, from India.

Ms. De had attended literature festivals in Karachi and Lahore, but this is her first visit to Islamabad. To start with, she said she had been keen on visiting the capital since it was a city which was neither here nor there. An Indian diplomat had told her it was like a small European city, but at first glance, it seemed more like Chandigarh.

She arrived to a warm welcome, and hoped that every city in Pakistan would have a literary festival.

If it had not been for the festival, she would not have been able to visit here. It was an important moment for her. The festivals she had attended in Pakistan were liberal, progressive and relaxed, and stood for all that was good for the region.

Opening the festival, Zehra Nigah, writer, said it was important for people to read and enjoy books.

She told The Hindu that it was important to hold such festivals and people were enjoying them despite the prevailing conditions.

Aamer Hussain, writer, and Asif Farrukhi, festival organiser, spoke.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/south-asia/it-is-all-hos...

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 5, 2014 at 4:58pm

PRI story on Modi and Pakistan:

Growing up in India, I'd sometimes drop my cricket bat in the middle of the game and say to my friends, "I'll be right back. Going to Pakistan."

None of them would raise an eyebrow. They knew I meant I was off to the bathroom.

I grew up with strong feelings about Pakistan. It was my enemy.

My friends and I wished the worst things for Pakistan, and disliked losing to them — on the battlefield, or the cricket field.

Every time a terrorist attack happened in India, we blamed it on Pakistan and wished our prime minister would declare war.

I thought that's how every Indian should feel; the more you hated Pakistan, the more patriotic you were.

Then, 10 years ago, I moved to the United States, and, for the first time in my life, I met a person from Pakistan. Then I met another Pakistani. And then, another.

We spoke the same language, ate the same food, told the same jokes and felt passionate about the same sport. We had so many things in common that I often forgot we were not from the same country.

Right now, a general election is taking place in India. Narendra Modi, the candidate for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is expected to become the next prime minster. He’s the chief minister of Gujarat, the northwestern state bordering Pakistan.

Modi is controversial. In 2005, he was denied a US visa because of his alleged role in the Gujurat riots in 2002, where about 1,000 people died, most of them Muslim.

Some of my friends from Pakistan express concern about Modi and they've asked me what I think of him.

In my previous life, I might have voted for Modi.

But now, he makes me nervous.

http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-05-05/i-used-think-pakistan-my-enem...

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 1, 2015 at 3:53pm

“Aap India se hai? Are you Indian? That makes you our guest. We can’t take any money from you!”

It was my fourth and last day in Islamabad, and this reaction from a handicrafts shop salesman didn’t surprise me anymore. I’d been getting it from the first day, this outpouring of warmth and generosity from Pakistanis the moment I mentioned India, and it never failed to charm me.

When I flew from Mumbai to Islamabad earlier this month, I was excited about finally getting a glimpse of India’s estranged midnight twin, about meeting the people who are ‘just like us’ but still the perpetual ‘other’.

I was preparing for four days of spotting similarities and differences, but the only striking difference I was able to discern was one that left me with a twinge of shame: all the Pakistanis I encountered love Indians, but most Indians don't return the love.

You must have some tea
I was in Islamabad for an International Women’s Empowerment conference organised by the American Embassy in Pakistan, and my precious single-city visa was valid for just seven days.

---

First, it came from the otherwise sombre immigration officials at Islamabad’s Benazir Bhutto airport where we landed: a lady officer, while scanning our documents, grinned mischievously at us and said, “India waale toh suspicious hote hai” – Indians are objects of suspicion, right?

We grinned back and proceeded for the airport police verification for foreigners, where the official took a break from an argument with another man to say, “You are from India? You must have some tea!”

One Potato, Two Potato
Outside our hotel, we had time to grab a quick lunch before the conference began, and the only restaurant open on a Friday afternoon in Jinnah Market was OPTP – One Potato Two Potato – serving American fast food. We had been dreaming of kebabs and biryani, but for now, burgers and fries it had to be.

I still hadn’t had time for foreign exchange, so Ashwaq – my fellow Indian traveller – offered to pay for lunch with the Pakistani rupees that she had acquired from an agent in Delhi. But the cashier wouldn’t take them. “These are outdated notes, madam,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. "They are no longer valid."

We pleaded, and after a minute of thumb-twiddling, he double-checked with a friend and came back with the same response: the notes couldn’t be accepted any more.

Tired and hungry, we cursed the dubious Delhi agent – and then it began.

“Delhi? Are you from India?” the cashier said. “Well, it’s okay. I’ll take the old notes. You are our guests.”

He insisted, and the burgers and fries, and the free cheese dips he threw in didn’t taste so American any more.

---

On my third night, while gorging on meaty street food at the Melody Food Park, this dildaari moved me to do something I never imagined I would: I drank a whole cup of tea, a beverage I dislike almost as much as coffee (I’m weird, I know).

For journalists, sharing chai with sources is often the smoothest way to break the ice and win trust, but I always wriggle out of the ritual by claiming I’m allergic to tea.

But this tea – a steaming cup of Peshawari kahwa – was a treat from a humble vendour of chappal kebabs, who couldn’t contain his excitement when he found out I was Indian.

“I’ve always wanted to go to India! You have to let us show you our hospitality!” he said, and served us a complimentary kebab along with kahwa.

I’m still no fan of any kind of tea, but that cup definitely left me warm inside.

And Indians?
So, what answer did I have to the one question that so many hospitable Pakistanis in Isloo, as they call Islamabad, asked of me so eagerly, both in and outside the conference?

The question would typically come after heartfelt conversations about India, Pakistan, Kashmir and the politics that separates us:

“We really love Indians – after all, we’re basically the same people. Do Indians feel the same way about us?”

http://www.dawn.com/news/1172832/

http://scroll.in/article/713950/Ordinary-Pakistanis-seem-to-love-In...

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 31, 2016 at 8:06am

An #Indian's Act of #Sedition: "#Pakistanis are the most gracious people in the world". #India #Pakistan #Modi #BJP
http://www.dawn.com/news/1280722

A warm welcome
Our flight landed in Lahore, and our friends drove us from the airport to their home in Islamabad. I noticed that my mother was initially a little tense. Maybe it was memories of the violence of her exile; maybe it was just the idea that this was now a foreign land, and for many in India the enemy land.

I watched my mother gradually relax on the road journey to Islamabad, as she delighted in hearing my friends and the car driver speak the Punjabi of her childhood, and as she watched the altered landscape of her journey. Islamabad, of course, did not exist when she lived in the Punjab of her days.

In Islamabad, my friends invited to their homes many of their associates with their parents. They organised evenings of Punjabi poetry and music, which my parents relished. Our friends drove us to Murree, the hill-station in which my mother spent many pleasant summers as a child.

My mother had just one more request. Could she go to see the colony in Rawalpindi where she was born and spent her childhood in? My father also wanted to visit his college, the famous Gordon College in Rawalpindi.

A homecoming
My mother recalled that the name of the residential colony in which she lived as a child was called Gawal Mandi. My friends knew it well; it was now an upmarket upper middle-class enclave.

When we reached there, my mother tried to locate the house of her childhood. It seemed impossible. Everything was new: most of the old houses had been rebuilt and opulent new structures had come up in their place.

She located the building that had housed their gurudwara. It had now been converted into a health centre. But we had almost despaired of actually finding her childhood house. We doubted if it was even standing all these years later.

We were leaving when suddenly my mother pointed to the filigree work on the balconies of one of the old houses. My mother said: “I remember it because my father was very proud of the designs. He said there was none like it in the neighbourhood."

Taking a chance, we knocked tentatively on the door of the house. A middle-aged man opened it, and asked us who we wanted to meet.

My mother said apologetically, “We are so sorry to trouble you, and intrude suddenly in this way. But I lived as a child in Gawal Mandi, before Partition, when we had to leave for India. I think this maybe was our home.”

The house owner’s response was spontaneous and immediate.

"Mataji, why do you say that this was your home? It continues to be your home even today. You are most welcome.”
And he led us all in.

Before long, my mother confirmed that this was indeed her childhood home. She went from room to room, and then to the terrace, almost in a trance, recalling all the while fragments of her childhood memories in various corners of this house.

For months after we returned to Delhi, she would tell me that recollections of the house returned to her in her dreams.

Take a look: Why my heart said Pakistan Zindabad!

Half an hour later, we thanked the house-owners and said that we would be on our way. But they would not hear of it.

We were told: “You have come to your childhood home, then how can we let you go without you having a meal with us here?”

They overruled all our protestations, and lunch was prepared for around eight members of our party, including not just my family but also our Pakistani hosts. Only when they were sure that we had eaten our fill, and more, did they allow us to leave.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 19, 2016 at 8:05am

#India writer Yoginder Sikand says in his book "Beyond the Border" that he was taught to hate #Pakistan at age 4. https://books.google.com/books?id=xoJICgAAQBAJ&pg=PT6&dq=Be... …

Indian writer Yoginder Sikand in his book "Beyond the Border":

When I was only four years old and we were living in Calcutta (in 1971)...it was clear that "Pakistan" was something that I was meant to hate and fear, though I had not the faintest idea where and what that dreaded monster (Pakistan) was.

What I heard and read about the two countries (India and Pakistan)--at school, on television and over radio, in the newspapers and from relatives and friends--only served to reinforce negative images of Pakistan, a country inhabited by people I necessarily had dread and even to define myself against. Pakistan and myself were equated as one while India and the Hindus were treated as synonymous. The two countries, as well as the two communities were said to be absolutely irreconcilable. To be Indian necessarily meant, it seemed to be uncompromisingly anti-Pakistani. To question this assumption, to entertain any thought other than the standard line about Pakistan and its people, was tantamount to treason.

https://books.google.com/books?id=xoJICgAAQBAJ&pg=PT6&dq=Be...

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 10, 2019 at 4:39pm

#Indian Author/Activist Harsh Mandar: "I have travelled to many countries in the world in the sixty years of my life. I have never encountered a people as gracious as those in #Pakistan" https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/book-extract/never-encountered-...
.

Taking a chance, we knocked tentatively at the door of the house. A middle-aged man opened the latch, and asked us who we wanted to meet. My mother said apologetically, ‘We are so sorry to trouble you, and intrude suddenly in this way. But I lived as a child in Gawal Mandi, before Partition, when we had to leave for India. I think this maybe was our home.’

The house-owner’s response was spontaneous and immediate. ‘Mataji, why do you say that this was your home? It continues to be your home even today. You are most welcome’. And he led us all in. Before long, my mother confirmed that this was indeed her childhood home. She went from room to room, and then to the terrace, almost in a trance, recalling all the while fragments of her childhood memories in various corners of this house.

For months after we returned to Delhi, she would tell me that recollections of the house returned to her in her dreams.

Half an hour later, we thanked the house-owners and said that we would be on our way. But they would not hear of it. ‘You have come to your childhood home, then how can we let you go without you having a meal with us here?’ They overruled all our protestations, and lunch was prepared for around eight members of our party, including not just my family but also our Pakistani hosts. Only when they were sure that we had eaten our fill, and more, did they allow us to leave.

After we returned to India, news of our adventure spread quickly among family and friends. The next year, my mother-in-law, a wheel-chair user, requested that we take her also to Pakistan to visit her childhood home, this time in Gujranwala.

Given the joys of my parents’ successful visit, I was more confident. But then many elderly aunts and an elderly uncle joined the trip, and in the end my wife and I were accompanying six older people to Pakistan.

Our experience this time was very similar to a year earlier. The owner of their old ancestral haveli in their Gujranwala village took my mother-in-law around the sprawling property on her wheel-chair, and after we had eaten with them asked her, ‘Would you not like to check out your farmlands?’

On both visits, wherever my wife visited shops, for clothes, footwear or handicrafts, if the shopkeepers recognised her to be Indian, they would invariably insist on a hefty concession on the price. ‘You are our guests’, they would say. ‘How can we make a profit from our guests?’

As news of these visits travelled further, my associates from an NGO Ashagram for the care and rights of persons living with leprosy in a small town Barwani in Madhya Pradesh—with which I had a long association since its founding—demanded that I organise a visit for them also to Pakistan.

Once again, the Pakistani High Commission granted to them visas and they were on their way. There was only one catch, and this was that all of them were vegetarian. They enjoyed greatly the week they spent in Pakistan, except for the food.

Every night they would set out looking for a wayside shop to buy fruit juice. Each night they found a new shop, and each night without exception, the shopkeeper refused to accept any money for the fruit juice.

‘We will not charge money from our guests from India,’ they would say each time. This happened for a full seven days.

I have travelled to many countries in the world in the sixty years of my life. I have never encountered a people as gracious as those in Pakistan.

This declaration is my latest act of sedition.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 7, 2020 at 10:13pm

A passage to #Pakistan by @dhume: #Indians may have a distorted view of their neighbor, but Pakistanis don’t quite get #India either. #Delhi’s Pakistan policy is a disaster..it's based on a combination of hubris and hatred that are the opposite of realism https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-edit-page/a-passage-t...

Cliches about the warmth of Pakistani hospitality are true. But you can also encounter kindness among ordinary Pakistanis that has nothing to do with a culture of looking after your guests. At the Pakistan International Airlines counter in Lahore, a young man helpfully suggests that i check my carry-on bag at the gate to avoid paying for excess baggage. In the Indian imagination, particularly on the Hindu Right, Pakistan brings to mind only fanaticism and violence. But a visitor can experience it instead as a land of many small kindnesses.

The Indian view of Pakistan is increasingly shaped by a kind of national hysteria, an inability to view the country dispassionately as a geographical space that happens to be inhabited by a kindred people whose ancestors were Indians. In general, educated Pakistanis are less ignorant about India than their Indian counterparts are about Pakistan. (They are alarmingly up-to-date on Bollywood gossip.) But here too distortions abound. For Pakistanis, India is north India. Indian politics is the politics of the Hindi heartland.

----------------

On television, Indians are fed a diet of jingoism that is detached from reality. For instance, while Pakistan’s global influence may have declined precipitously – in large measure because of its sclerotic economy – the idea that India can isolate a nuclear-armed nation with more than 200-million people is preposterous. As things stand, Pakistan enjoys a strong relationship with China, has largely repaired its once strained relations with America, and is open to overtures from Russia.

Perhaps one day the politicians who run India and the generals who run Pakistan will feel secure enough to allow Indians and Pakistanis to visit each other freely and experience each other’s countries for themselves. Until such contact becomes commonplace, the odds of South Asia becoming more like Southeast Asia – united by economics rather than divided by politics – remain vanishingly slim.

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 10, 2022 at 10:27pm

An Indian CEO shared a beautiful story from her Harvard days.


https://www.indiatoday.in/trending-news/story/indian-woman-s-story-...


The post gives a description of a blooming friendship between Early Steps Academy CEO and her Pakistani friend.
She shared a picture with her Pakistani friend.
An endearing post shared by the CEO of Early Steps Academy has won the hearts of netizens. The LinkedIn post by Sneha Biswas gave the perfect example of friendship that broke all barriers. Biswas wrote about one of her classmates from Harvard Business School who happened to be a Pakistani citizen. The beautiful story of friendship received a thumbs up from people.

The post gave a detailed description of the blooming friendship between Biswas and her friend from Pakistan. “Growing up in a small town in India, my knowledge about Pakistan was limited to cricket, history books and the media. All revolving around rivalry and hatred. Decades later I met this girl. She is from Islamabad, Pakistan. I met her on my Day 1 at Harvard Business School. It took us 5 seconds to like each other and by the end of first semester she became one of my closest friends on campus,” Biswas wrote.


---------

Growing up in a small town in India, my knowledge about Pakistan was limited to cricket, history books and the media. All revolving around rivalry and hatred.

Decades later I met this girl. She is from Islamabad, Pakistan. I met her on my Day 1 at Harvard Business School . It took us 5 seconds to like each other and by the end of first semester she became one of my closest friends on campus.

Over multiple chais, biryanis, financial models and case study preps, we got to know each other. Her stories of growing up in a conversative Pakistani backdrop, but blessed with supportive parents who gave her and her younger sister the courage to break the norms and chase their dreams, resonated with me. Her stories of fearless ambitions and bold choices inspired me.

I realized that while pride for your individual nations stand strong, your love for people transcends geographies and boundaries. People, fundamentally, are similar everywhere. Boundaries, borders and spaces are built by humans, and while it all might make sense to the head, the heart often fails to understand them.

Look at us on the famous flag day at #harvard - flaunting our flags and smiling away at the joy of “breaking barriers” - not just literally between India and Pakistan, but also for the countless little girls from India and Pakistan who are scared to shoot for the stars.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:69626110993345...

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 11, 2022 at 7:28am

India woman's post on Pakistani friend wins hearts on social media
Published

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-62501687

An Indian woman's post about her friendship with a Pakistani classmate is being praised on social media.

The two are students at Harvard Business School, and the post shows them holding the national flag of their respective countries.

Sneha Biswas wrote that her friendship with a Pakistani student broke the stereotypes she knew about the neighbouring country.

The two nations have shared hostile relations for decades.

India has banned Pakistani artists and cricketers from performing and playing in India. Pakistan has banned Bollywood films.

Celebrating the sentiment of unity depicted in the post, one user commented "we built walls between each other and thus it's up to us to bring it down." Another user hoped that the two women would "share a lifelong friendship that may bring changes across the borders for girls on both sides".

Ms Biswas, who is also an entrepreneur, shared the post about her friendship with her Pakistani classmate on LinkedIn. She did not name her friend.

In the post, she said that growing up in a small town, her knowledge about Pakistan and its people was limited. She got all her information through books and media, which often espoused narratives of hatred and rivalry.

She met her friend, who is from Islamabad, on her first day at Harvard and the two have developed a close friendship since then.

Over many chats enjoyed with tea and biryani (a flavourful rice dish), she discovered her friend's similar background - that of growing up in a "conservative Pakistani backdrop" but having family that supported her dreams.

"I realised that while pride for your individual nations stand strong, your love for people transcends geographies and boundaries," wrote Ms Biswas.

Her post championed unity between the people, saying "boundaries, borders and spaces are built by humans." She talked about "breaking barriers" not just between the two countries, but also for little girls from India and Pakistan who are "scared to shoot for the stars."

The post has received social media attention in the week running up to India's and Pakistan's independence anniversaries, celebrated on 15 and 14 August respectively. Both nations' independence is also linked to the Partition in 1947, which led to the division of India into India and Pakistan. The partition was one of the bloodiest events in history, and one that experts say laid the seeds of animosity between the two nations.

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 20, 2023 at 4:37pm

PAKISTAN, THROUGH INDIAN EYES

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2389418/pakistan-through-indian-eyes

Ms. Nitupola Sharma writes an account of her first encounter with a Pakistani and her visit to Pakistan

Arriving at my friend’s home, I could sleep only for an hour, totally excited at the prospect of seeing my old friends and exploring the country that I had thought I would never be able to see in my lifetime. Saad had a beautiful, spacious bungalow in DHA. At breakfast, Saad shared a humorous story of how his friends had cautioned him against having me, an Indian, stay in his house in a defence housing colony. Filled with worry, he had been wondering what to do as I was already planned to arrive in a day. He received a call from an unknown number. Saad nearly had a heart attack when the voice on the other side asked if he was Saad Iqbal, and on confirmation asked him if he was having an Indian visitor. Barely being able to squeak out a yes, Saad waited with bated breath as to what would come next. He was pleasantly surprised when the voice introduced himself as a relative of the ambassador, and that he would like to have all of us join him for dinner in Islamabad. This trip of mine was getting more and more eventful and memorable by the minute.

The afternoon found us meeting another ex-colleague, Nauman, and going together as a huge group of mischievous children and adults to the walled city of Lahore. Children made so much of a din that it was impossible for the adults to have any sort of a conversation. I felt a familiarity with one part of the city with its high walls, wide clean roads, and bungalows with its similarity to Gurgaon. Interior Lahore was more like Old Delhi with its abundant share of historical relics and cosy small outlets selling curios, antiques and artifacts, and snack sellers competing in their persuasive methods to entice you to stop by their colourfully decorated stalls.

I fell in love with Cooco’s Den with its beautiful stained-glass windows, narrow dark and dingy spiral steps, abundance of antiques, its secretive air, its gorgeous paintings, and open veranda giving you an amazing view of the walled city. The narrow building seemed to be bursting with stories and secrets of forbidden romances, having been the house of a lady infamous for her different lifestyle in a conservative society. Her son had converted their home into a restaurant. Soulful music accompanied our food, an experience that I will never forget. Never have I ever tasted karahi chicken that was so tasty that Ryan practically scraped off the handi and could not stop gushing about it.

The sight of the Badshahi Masjid, sharing its walls with the Ranjit Singh Gurudwara, and the Shahi Qila with the Minar-e-Pakistan standing guard in the front like a torch to these three precious historical treasures, was an exceptional experience worth its weight in gold. Shahi Qila with its paintings framed in precious stones, sadly most of them scrapped out. There is a huge step that was created for elephants to carry their royal riders directly inside the fort.

Inside the Badshahi Masjid, children enjoyed themselves the most as they ran around in the open area. The sight of the normally shy and self-conscious Ryan lying down in abandon on the carpet, busy with his new cell phone, completely oblivious of his surroundings, was a new sight to me.

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