Broken hearts
Why did Partition happen? Why do we have borders? Why are all my neighbours my “enemies”? Do they really hate us? Are they even they? Or are they actually just.. us? Is he like me? Am I like him? Can I cross the line, and not suddenly be an outsider?
I love my country, and I always saw Pakistan as separate from my own, as an enemy. Until now. No, we have the same skin, we eat the same food, we wear the same clothes, we speak the same language. You cannot break up something that is mine and tell me suddenly that it is no longer belongs to me. You can not alienate me from a people that are the same as me. I am angry. And hurt, and shamed, my trust broken, my pride melted, my eyes fallen. How could you do this? How could I do this? Why did you do this?
I still remember that room at Tufts – screening a documentary made by a Pakistani journalist. I entered, and seeing a ton of brown people, immediately felt at home, (even though they had the accents!). Until, very soon I realized, I was not sitting in an Indian crowd, but in a predominantly Pakistani one. For the first time, I felt at a loss of identity. I did not know who I was. And I suppose, what hit me most was that I could not distinguish myself from the Pakistanis sitting around me. Then someone said “Chacha”, and another “Gulab Jamun”. I wanted to hit myself hard. I was slowly beginning to realize, they are not different from us. You are like me. I am like you.
I am in London now, and I have absolutely no idea who is who or from where. And, I don’t care. One of the guys at Costcutter says “chai apne mulk ka hain”. I wanted to ask him, how did he know I was Indian? While another Pakistani from Lahore sells me wine at half the price calling me his little sister, or Aapa/ didi. He says his one desire is to come to India. I want to say to him, mine is to go to Pakistan.
I am angry and hurt. For the past 20 years, I lived in the oblivion that my country gained independence on the 15th of August, 1947, and it was a day of pride and celebration. That damned day also saw the bloodiest and worst transfer of people in the world, where millions of my countrymen bled. Who, can I call, my countrymen? The ones who were coming, the ones who stayed and then left, or the ones who left, or the ones who were killed? Aren’t they all? What does country mean, if love does not matter? With some amazing ability and capacity, I managed to keep Independence and Partition as two separate events, not linking the two, not realizing that along with Independence, came the wounds, scarred memories and dried blood from Partition. What sort of independence was this, which fragmented the nation into broken bits and pieces? What kind of celebration, when nearby, million hearts were broken, and still, after 63 years, remain thus?
I can never celebrate 15th August the same way again. Nor find pride in the false glory of Independence.
