Coming Home to a Foreign Land

Reading Borders & Boundaries - Women in India's Partition, (by Ritu Menon and Kamala Basin) flooded my mind with images brought back from my memorable trip to the 'foreign' land that Indians either dread or yearn to go to.

I still recall the feeling of familiarity, which hit us when we took

the road through the streets of Lahore after the particularly warm reception we got at Lahore airport. The short flight to Lahore seemed to have transported us from one part of Delhi to yet another.

I felt the same nip-in-the spring air; saw the same kind of houses, wide lanes and shopping malls. The trees and streets were decorated with lights to celebrate 'Basant' (the Spring festival) and lovely floats adorned the canal running right through this capital city of the Punjab province. The only jarring note was the presence of armed guards lined up all along the road.

My trip to Lahore was to attend a Training Session organized by Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD), where 200 of us from 40 different countries had assembled. The Lahore University of Management Sciences, with its impressive buildings, and hi-tech infrastructure (especially the computer lab), hosted the event. I can never forget the flawless hospitality, that friendly warden who arranged a bucket of hot water to soak my swollen feet in and the packets of medicines which arrived when people heard that I was not well!

I also began to recognize the special affinity that we Indians shared

with the Pakistan contingent. We seemed to be operating on the same mental wavelength. We spoke almost the same tongue and understood each other effortlessly. Our clothes, music and food were the same, as were the movies and television soaps we watched.

But despite the camaraderie, we could not wish away our common history, and the political, social and religious divides that dogged us. We were always conscious of not saying or doing anything that could snowball into an "international incident". In fact, I was never more conscious of my identity as a non-Muslim Indian woman as I was in Pakistan.

Cultural similarities and political differences were really driven home during our field visit to Karachi. Maybe I was a little disappointed to find that Karachi was not really different from our very own Mumbai, right from the congested roads to the garbage on the streets and the familiar seaside smell.

Uncanny familiarity struck me when I attended a cultural event in

Karachi. The evening began with a dance in the Bharat Natyam style based on Rabindranath Tagore's famous poem, "Where the mind is without fear". An invocation to the Hindu Elephant God - Ganesha followed in the Odissi style.

The performance ended with a dance in the Kathak style. As I watched and listened I realized that Tagore had never thought of Pakistan as being "different" from India when he wrote the poem. I also realized then that both countries shared a common cultural legacy and therefore claimed these dance forms as their own.

Never before had I questioned the appropriateness of my close relatives being renowned exponents of Kathak--a dance form originating in Muslim durbars. So, why was I at a loss for words when a colleague from Russia innocently asked me whether the dance form was Indian or Pakistani?

Meeting old friends in Karachi was truly a homecoming experience. We

spent the evening talking about ourselves, our families, our professional lives, our countries, our cultures, our similarities and our enforced differences, and how these affected our futures. We talked about things that were taboo: religious fanaticism and the intrusion of Pakistani troops into Kargil, India. We both knew people with relatives who were involved in the ‘war’, and realized that their anxieties were similar although on opposite sides of the border.

We also saw the public face of Pakistan--the HUBCO power plant, an

international project responsible for generating 15 per cent of the

country's electricity. We saw the lavish lifestyles of our cell-phone-toting fellow professionals. Yet, most people we met referred to the national economy as dying and debt-dependent. Pakistani colleagues explained the dichotomy and assured me that I was seeing only a section of Pakistani society, perhaps not representative of the whole.

Other contrasts struck me as we explored the work of development NGOs. Some seemed to enjoy state patronage, operating "top down" with a service-style approach. Others worked through community participation.

What struck me was the fact that while development is not a preferred profession in India; it certainly seemed to be the "in-thing" in Pakistan. Was this because of the high salary incentive that Pakistan's NGOs offered to all the foreign-educated, intellectually alive development professionals I happened to meet during my brief visit?

I can’t resist talking about the Women in Pakistan. It amused me to have to constantly answer queries on how women in India were different from their counterparts in Pakistan. One journalist even ventured to ask if Women in India were skimpily dressed, since they were supposed to have greater freedom!

I realized then how the right I took for granted, to kick-start my rickety old scooter and drive home, alone, in the middle of the night, in my city of Ahmedabad, was a near impossibility in Pakistan.

My visit to Pakistan certainly taught me to refrain from making judgments based on what is transmitted to us politically, historically and through the media. If I had expected to be greeted with hostility, my fears were baseless. If I had expected to see only "burkha-clad" women, I did not see even one! Instead I met Huma Beg, Managing Director of Serendip, a TV production company. This traditional looking woman with her decorously covered head excels at the most unconventional sport- riding hot air balloons!

Looking back, I realize that the one question I faced everywhere I went in Pakistan was, "How do you feel here?" And my truthful answer remains "At Home!"