The Other Side

A friend of mine is having an Eid karaoke party next week. While for me the entire theme is kooky in so many ways for him it’s just one way to meet up with people, have some good food and you know be happy. After all Eid is all about happiness and weirdly for many people happiness is best achieved through singing and dancing. Interestingly his mom was last pushing me into a drawing room with older and younger aunties after a “khatam�, repeatedly telling me that there is no such thing as “purdah� and that gender segregation is just a make-believe concept. Yes I might be the fundamentalist, the new kid on the block who has been “mullafied� in so many ways but I wonder why I am such a threat to the progressive, elite, professional, liberal Pakistani who is never given enough spotlight on BBC or CNN?

I and my kind go through the same phases in life as everyone else. And I don’t mean birth, marriage and death but silly crushes, a fair deal of existential angst and cigarettes. I guess the sight of a burqa clad women browsing through a designer boutique or a man praying in the corner of a mall is a big deal. And perhaps the daily dose of people nonchalantly walking past a mosque while everyone else is getting ready for prayers and the sight of fashionable young women complaining about how the ninjas are taking over town is equally frightening.

I have to face this paranoia every day. One of my friends with his shalwar upto his ankles, smelling of itar tried to explain to the skinny counter lady at McDonalds Islamabad that their new sandwich being marketed as the all-mighty king is an offensive term and only God can be that. And she with a polite smile held back her fear, her throat curled up so tight into an adam’s apple big enough to play snooker with. He looked at me for my approval and she for my help, and I stared them both down. Hey you two are the village idiots here- not me, one for giving too much thought to a sandwich and two for being scared of a guy whose most violent act is yanking open an itar bottle with his teeth.

There is not much value in trying to judge the world and maybe slightly more in trying to change it. But real power lies in understanding people around us and their motivations for the way they behave. In a place like Pakistan all of us are deeply insecure and we let the image of the opposites, the “others� define our experiences, ambitions and reactions. Difference is scary and specially when people so asymmetrical to one another try to co-exist in one place- just don’t get alarmed when you spot a “fundamentalist� seated two rows away from you in a cinema or a “half-sleeved� lady asking the Imam a question regarding her religious experience. Best advice is- get used to it.