I believe in Romancing the India-Pakistan border

[ajtr]

mere thread ka kya se kya kar diya.........................



'Hoping that now things will be different'

I am Shirin from Delhi and this is my friend Mahad from Lahore,
Everybody knows about the stereotypical thinking Indians and Pakistanis share about each other. Coming from India I was always surrounded by various opinions about Pakistanis, including growing up hearing that Pakistan is an enemy country. But personally I never formed any impression about Pakistanis until I went to Hong Kong.

In this multicultural environment I have gone beyond the conservative thoughts and understood the deep underlying fact that 'country' is just another attribute associated with a person and there is more to every individual, which defines the real identity.

Thanks to this exposure where we have shared thoughts, opinions and emotions, and co-existed together with no animosity towards each other, I have made my best friends from Pakistan. Together we've shared memorable moments to be cherished for life.

I learnt a lot about Pakistani society and feel that Pakistanis have a deep regard for their cultural values and traditions, which makes them essentially very presentable and respectable. They possess the beautiful sharp facial features also seen in the Middle East and their respect for women is commendable. Plus they are really smart (they are reaching sky when you talk to them about their GPA's).

Thanks to my Pakistani friends, I had the best Sheeshas, heard some beautiful evergreen songs and leant some graceful Urdu words! I will take these things with me forever, to always remind me of the gestures, hospitality and respect I received from my Pakistani friends.

We must understand the importance of staying united together and eradicate the disparities between the two nations. It's time to change the history and think beyond boundaries. Its time to move on from our 65-year history of conflict to a future of peace, as this August 14 and 15, our nations turn 66.

I and my friend Mahad, would like to wish you all a very Happy Independence Day. Here's hoping that now things will be different. Hoping that now our boundaries won't be so insurmountable that we are unable to see our reflection on the other side of the border.

- Shirin Soni (Delhi) with
Mahad Naseer (Lahore)

 

[ajtr]

Indo-Pak Medical Students Romance the Border: A JPMS Initiative

A Peace Initiative: A Group of Young Researchers And Doctors of India and Pakistan bridges the Divide
KARACHI: The idea of publishing a medical research journal had been sparkling in the minds of many young researchers from India and Pakistan. Although, there have been a couple of attempts, yet none has been successful to the extent of JPMS, the Journal of Pakistan Medical Students (JPMS, the Journal of Pakistan Medical Students, an international open access, peer-reviewed online medical journal. -- JPMS), which is currently indexed in 27 international databases.In January 2011, when two medical student researchers from Dow Medical College, Karachi, Pakistan established it . JPMS is unique in the sense that it takes the word “Student” in the broader aspect since learning is a life-long process. Hence, JPMS is one of the few journals, which has an editorial team of learned professors, dedicated young doctors and enthusiastic students, who belong to Pakistan, India, USA, Greece, Australia, UAE, Saudi Arabia, UK, Iran, Egypt and China.

Romancing the Border:
Majority of the editors and reviewers are from India and Pakistan. They have been working together for a more than a year and maintain friendly yet professional relationships. It has been a great learning process for editorial members from both the sides, and benefiting from each other’s expertise and building life-long friendships. JPMS has friendly and professional people and the focus is always on merit and standards . The Head of JPMS News Section is Dr Soumyadeep Bhaumik, Kolkata (who has previously served as a sub-editor for Journal of Indian Medical Association and is Currently a Resident Editor in Your Health of IMA ). Others from India associated with day to day activities of the journal are Dr Yatan Pal Singh Balhara,(Lady Hardinge Medical College and Smt. SK Hospital New Delhi, India), Dr Muhammad Tariq Salman (Era’s Lucknow Medical College, Lucknow, India) ,Dr Sourabh Aggarwal (Mission Hospital, Shahkot, Jalandhar, India) ,Mushtaq Chalkoo (Government Medical College, Srinagar, India),Ritesh Singh (College of Medicine and JLM Hospital, Kalyani, West Bengal, India),and Noushif Medappil (Calicut Medical College, Calicut University, Karela, India).

What makes JPMS different?
Although it was started by Pakistanis’, it has been publishing more articles from India rather than the home country. It has roughly published 55 quality research articles till date, out of which 30% of the contributions have been from India, on the contrary only 25% from Pakistan. The reason is that JPMS gives equal opportunities to the researchers from both the countries and articles are published purely on the basis of merit via an independent, double-blind, standard peer-review process. The journal is a member of Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE), UK and follows high ethical standards for publication. It has published articles from India, USA, UK, Greece, Egypt, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Mexico, Australia, UAE, China, Singapore, Iran, Pakistan and Kenya. It’s worth mentioning that JPMS gives equal opportunities to students for publishing their papers as the selection is purely based on merit. Besides, JPMS has been promoting internationally and publishing conference proceedings, it has also promoted recently an Indian conference held in March 2012 at KPC Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, India. Therefore, another effort to bring the two brotherly nations closer.

The Future:
The future plans of JPMS include collaborations with Indian conferences to bring the researchers together from both countries and publish quality research from this region. It wows to continue the trend of publishing Indian authors as it has been doing in the past. Long term goals include acquiring reputed indexations, securing a high impact factor along with releasing its print version in the near future. The goodwill and sense of bonding among young researchers and doctors from across will hopefully make India and Pakistan together accomplish the goal of making the world “ More Healthy , More Friendly.”

 

[ajtr]

Pakistani artist paints truck as Eid gift to India

AMRITSAR:
Pakistan’s famed artist Haider Ali painted an Indian truck on Saturday in an effort to spread the message of peace and friendship.
The artist was in Amritsar at the invitation of his Indian friend Aman who owns a restaurant ‘Sarhad’. Ali said he used Pakistani colours to paint the Indian truck to propagate peace between the two neighbours.
Interacting with media persons here, Ali, who is on a ten-day visit to India, said, “I wanted to exhibit my art here in India, our neighbouring country, that I love the most. Today I got the opportunity and I am very happy to use my art on the Indian truck.”
He said the truck painting was the perfect gift to his Indian friend on the eve of Eid.
“I should be with my family in Pakistan on Eid. But I am not feeling away from home as India looks like home to me,” said Ali, whose father Mohammad Sardar too was a painter by profession and hailed from Jalandhar.
His paintings include the depiction of women making Lassi, birds that are found both in India and Pakistan, and traditional art forms, showcasing traditional Punjabi lifestyle.
It takes three members of a team to paint a small truck while a big truck takes about 15 days to paint, depending on the work, says Ali.
Singling out unemployment as the common problem faced by India and Pakistan, the Karachi-based artist suggested promotion of truck painting to offer employment opportunities to people.
Ali, who has given several lectures on truck art in various universities around the world, expressed the desire to educate Indian students and professionals who want to learn truck art.

 

[Abingdonboy]

If only it were that simple. Oh the ignorance of a 12 year old's mind! I think all anyone can expect now is for India and Pakistan to have peaceful co-existence and parallel but separate paths without interfering with one-another.


I highly doubt this 12 year-old knows 1/100th of the pain and bad feeling on either side and the pain that has been caused. IMHO the heals are too deep and the gaps now too large to be bridged. Since 1947 the two nations have followed very different paths and have very different histories they now barely resemble each other and look completely different to what they did in 1947.

Thw two nations were created on different values and are now two different countries with similar but different societies and cultures. The gap increases day by day.

 

[Dubious]

If only it were that simple. Oh the ignorance of a 12 year old's mind! I think all anyone can expect now is for India and Pakistan to have peaceful co-existence and parallel but separate paths without interfering with one-another.


I highly doubt this 12 year-old knows 1/100th of the pain and bad feeling on either side and the pain that has been caused. IMHO the heals are too deep and the gaps now too large to be bridged. Since 1947 the two nations have followed very different paths and have very different histories they now barely resemble each other and look completely different to what they did in 1947.

Thw two nations were created on different values and are now two different countries with similar but different societies and cultures. The gap increases day by day.

I on the other hand hope she knows what is going on and is standing or wanting a change! I would be glad if in the next 10-15 yrs time she becomes some successful woman in joining the 2 countries- something others frown upon when suggested and other don't even want to dream about because they are soooo used to the hatred on both sides of the border that any change might make them uneasy!

We need more positive people like this innocent girl...Call her innocent but everyone who opts for a change is termed innocent and the few who manage to bring in the change are called HEROS

 

[vsdoc]

garv se bolo hindu hain

g

garv se ab page badlo

I would have happily romanced the border and beyond as a medical student. Alas too late now ....

 

[ajtr]

I on the other hand hope she knows what is going on and is standing or wanting a change! I would be glad if in the next 10-15 yrs time she becomes some successful woman in joining the 2 countries- something others frown upon when suggested and other don't even want to dream about because they are soooo used to the hatred on both sides of the border that any change might make them uneasy!

We need more positive people like this innocent girl...Call her innocent but everyone who opts for a change is termed innocent and the few who manage to bring in the change are called HEROS

Main akela he chala tha janib-e-manzil magar, log milte gaye aur karwan banta gaya [I set out alone for my destination, but people kept joining me along the way and formed a multitude].

 

[SamantK]

garv se bolo hindu hain

g

garv se ab page badlo

Lol... I have one solution, whenever you cannot change the page use any other browser, even IE for that matter will work

 

[vsdoc]

Yes yes I know man. Google Chrome.

Need my sys admin to do it.

Waiting to catch one with a suitable story.

 

[SamantK]

Yes yes I know man. Google Chrome.

Need my sys admin to do it.

Waiting to catch one with a suitable story.

Internet explorer will also do...

 

[vsdoc]

Internet explorer will also do...

I am on Internet Explorer.

It works better than Firefox (where page badlo posts do not badlo page).

 

[Dubious]

garv se bolo hindu hain

g

garv se ab page badlo

I would have happily romanced the border and beyond as a medical student. Alas too late now ....

Better late than never

 

[ajtr]

Pakistanis in India

Contact between people is important. It is all the more important when it comes at the official level and involves India and Pakistan. As we all know, it is vital that the two countries establish more harmonious ties if the region is to find the peace it has sought for so long.
In this sense, the visit by a delegation consisting of Pakistani parliamentarians and businessmen to New Delhi and Bihar is important. Parliamentarians, of course, have the power to change opinions in assemblies and influence people within their own constituencies. It is, therefore, important that they gain the opportunity to meet up with their counterparts in India and thus gain a first-hand experience of life in India and the prevailing opinions there. This is also important as it will enable us to look at things from the Indian side of the fence where bias is no less common than in our own country.
What is also significant is that the delegation led by the deputy chairman of the Senate, Sabir Baloch, is to encourage yet further contact at the provincial level for the future. Haji Muhammad Adeel, the representative from Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa and Khurram Dastagir, from Punjab, are both expected to invite parliamentarians from Bihar to visit Pakistan and their respective parts of the country so that dialogue can continue. This is an important process. Until now, too much of the news on crossing borders is gained through sometimes inaccurate media accounts rather than genuine events. The real views of ordinary people — who for the most part seek an improvement in their lives — do not cross borders.
The parliamentary delegation’s visit can help change matters. It is expected that a fairly wide range of issues will be discussed, with businessmen forming a part of the contingents crossing the Wagah Border also likely to put forward their own concerns and suggestions. What we need, however, are many more visits like this one. We must hope that these links can be expanded and ways found to build the structure for a solid relationship that can lead us towards cooperation we so badly need with our eastern neighbour.

 

[ajtr]

How I started loving Pakistan

Sapan Kapoor recounts how his hatred for with the people of Pakistan following the

Mumbai attacks turned to love..

On a damp, gloomy evening of December 3, 2008, I was among the 20,000 or so Indians who congregated near the Taj Hotel in Mumbai to express solidarity with the victims of the heinous attack carried out by Pakistani gunmen, the last of whom was neutralized by the Indian security forces just five days earlier. Seething with anger and craving revenge, the agitated but disciplined crowd, young and old, blasted Pakistan as well as callous Indian politicians. ‘Khoon ka badla khoon!’ (blood for blood) was the main war cry.

I myself screamed so much that for the next three days I could not speak without feeling pain. The Mumbai attack left deep scars on the psyche of millions of Indians like me. It literally changed the world around us. We were devastated, humiliated, shattered, and deeply hurt. Mumbai - the city I loved the most - had been desecrated and molested, and so brazenly. I started to despise and loathe Pakistan from the bottom of my heart, tarring the nearly 170 million people of my neighbouring country with the same brush.

Revenge for 26/11 became a top priority of my life. I wanted Pakistan to pay for its sins, and as a journalist I got many opportunities. While working for a premier news organization of India, people at my office hailed me as a hero for an anti-Pakistan story I wrote related to Mumbai attacks that made headlines across India and abroad.

But I regret that now. I feel shame for what I did. Today I’m not here to shower hatred upon Pakistanis but to tell them how sorry I am for having stereotyped Pakistanis. I had become so blind in my anger towards Pakistan following 26/11 that I lost my ability to differentiate between the good and the bad. I forgot a basic lesson which is taught to all Indians in schools and homes that there are only two kinds of people in this world - the good and the bad. I forgot Mahatma Gandhi’s words: ‘An eye for an eye will make us all blind’ and ‘Violence is an invitation to more violence’.

Alas! In a fit of anger, my young dilettante mind could not see that just as there were good people in India, there were bad too. These good and bad people are everywhere in the world and Pakistan is no exception to this. Don’t good people exist in Pakistan? Don’t bad people exist in India?

I agree with my fellow Indians that the perpetrators of Mumbai attacks must be brought to justice, and that we must bring this painful episode to its logical conclusion. I agree that we must have zero tolerance toward terrorism. However, at the same time we must also try to be best friends with the people of Pakistan who have only love and friendship to offer to India. Just because they have Ajmal Kasab and Hafeez Saeed, should we stop loving Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Ali Zafar? Similarly just because we have Babu Bajrangi and Maya Kodnanni, should Pakistanis stop loving Lata Mangeshkar and Amitabh Bachchan? We must at all costs avoid such dangerous stereotyping.

I’ve never been to Pakistan. The first Pakistanis I met were the family members of 80-year-old Pakistani virologist Khalil Chishty who had come to New Delhi from Karachi seeking his release from an Ajmer jail where he was undergoing life imprisonment. I shall never forget that emotional encounter with the Chishty family in a lodge near Nizamuddin Dargah in New Delhi. It was November 2011, and the news agency I worked for had assigned me to interview them. It was while talking to them that I realized how much the common Pakistanis loved India and understood their strong desire to make friends with India. This human encounter opened my eyes, enabling me to differentiate between the good and the bad. I realized that the Pakistanis were also ordinary people like us. I saw no difference whatsoever between them and me - we conversed in same language and I was very comfortable talking to them.

So it was only after I personally interacted with Pakistani people that my anger towards Pakistan started to wither away. It helped me to finally realise my folly. I asked myself - how could I despise an entire country for the acts committed by a few individuals? How could I be so unfair on the people of Pakistan? In retrospect, I hang my head in shame today. I’m sorry, Pakistan.

Pakistan. What should I say about Pakistan? It’s a country that has fascinated me for the last 20 years of my life. I've been literally obsessed with everything Pakistani -- music, cricket, food, culture, and last but not least our common language. I’d say many Indians and Pakistanis are obsessed with each other. Why are we like this? The answer lies in our shared history and culture.

When I was a teenager I used to wonder why these people of Pakistan - who seem so similar to us - are separated from India? Why is there so much animosity between our two nations? At first I could not understand the reason behind my deep curiosity about Pakistan. Then I learned that Indians and Pakistanis were actually twin brothers who were separated at birth in 1947. Well don't brothers fight with each other? I now realise that it’s not the people of India and Pakistan who have animosity for each other, but that the problem lies elsewhere. I've come to know that the people of India and Pakistan are actually truly, deeply, madly in love with each other. But they won’t accept it. Isn’t it true that not a single day of ours passes without thinking of each other; when we do not sneak through our heavily manned borders to see what's happening on the other side? Isn't it true that our hearts beat for each other? If not love, what else could be the reason behind our immense obsession with each other?

I confess that my heart beats for the people of Pakistan. Why shouldn't I love my own brothers and sisters? For they were once a part of my soul. Yes, I love you, Pakistan. I know Pakistanis love India too. It’s time we made our love public though. I strongly believe now that conflict between India and Pakistan must retire at the age of 65 and give way to peace, friendship, love, and harmony; that we must be best friends with each other and demolish the walls that separate us. India and Pakistan — these two beautiful nations — can co-exist peacefully and be like brothers as they were before the partition. We've had enough of conflict. We cannot afford more bloodshed. We cannot afford to lose more precious lives. It’s also important to maintain communal harmony between different communities in both our countries, especially in India. Enough of conflict; it’s time to love India and Pakistan.

Nazar me rahte ho jab tum nazar nahi aatey, yeh sur bulate hain jab tum idhar nahi aatey!

Love and only love from India

The writer is a journalist and Indo-Pak peace activist based in India. Email kapoor.sapan85@gmail.com.

 

[ajtr]