A fortuitous mistake

Recently I stayed near an industrial area with south asian labour, in a gulf state. no I am not a communist nor a masochist, it was an error but turned out to be serendipitous.

There was labour from every major area of the subcontinent from Kohat to Kottayam. there were basically two eating joints one was a muslim malyalee’s and the other of a Pakistani from around lahore.

It was interesting to see the sikhs patronising the pakistani joint mostly though there were occasions when a sikh could be seen at the malbari’s. This was not suprising since the pakistanis spoke just like sikhs in india, the same dialect etc. Infact one of the young boys serving food there, who had a beard looked so much like a sikh friend of mine that i wanted to ask him.

What was surprising was that I often saw the pakistanis frequenting the malbaris shop, where i too spent most of my meals because his food was far less greasy, and i quite enjoy their food.

But at the pakistanis i also often saw biharis/Bengalees, i couldnt tell if they were muslim or hindu, i wish I had probed fuirther but it didnt seem appropriate. the Poorbi’s, punjabis, Pathans, sikhs were not estranged from each other but it was only the sikhs and the muslim punjabis that i saw mix together with some ease. it was pretty evident that had it not been for religion they would have been one people, despite so much religious indoctrination on both sides the two rustic people have maintained their sameness. probably one woudnt se that among the city dwellers or among the more educated gentry.