Old but nice article. A bit lengthy though but worth reading.
A Pakistani School`s Visit to India
by Alia Amirali](http://www.chowk.com/show_writer_page.cgi?pen_name=Alia Amirali) Published: August 16, 2001 Students and teachers of Khaldunia High School in Islamabad make a visit across the border at the time of the Agra Summit. A 16-year old student, writes about her experiences.
Nowhere else in the world can one enter an enemy country and feel so at ease. Crossing the border from Pakistan into India felt slightly strange, as there were no dramatic changes in the environment as I had expected. Of course, a few 100 meters cannot bring about much of a change in landscape, but crossing over to another country one still expects to see something alien. Indeed, as Amritsar approached, signboards and advertisements written in Hindi sprang up, which made us realize we were not just in a different part of our own country. But once read out, I understood every word of Hindi because it is almost identical to Urdu when spoken - just the scripts are different.
Looking at the people made it still more difficult to accept the fact that this was a foreign country. Driving to Delhi, the people I passed were so very similar to our own in every way - appearance, mannerism, occupation and activity. The houses, the traffic, the atmosphere, all were uncannily familiar.
This was just the beginning.
Upon reaching Delhi we were greeted both by a loud, irritable, and rather large customs officer, as well as by flowers, gifts and a warm welcome from our hosts, the organization ASHA and many school representatives. The press was there as well, and it was the beginning of an entirely unexpected relationship with them.
The first interaction with the Indian people was an informal gathering. The kindness they showed us was, in my initial opinion, imposed on them due to the situation. But when we got a chance to talk completely of our own accord, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the warmth was sincere.
Most of our time in India was spent in Lucknow. Those seven days were the ones that left a permanent imprint on me. The main organization involved with our visit was ASHA, a voluntary organization. Their main crew was with us from the time we left Delhi, till the very last moment upon reaching Delhi again, which was a period of almost nine days. As time progressed, my impression of these people developed from being organized, friendly, and hospitable people to knowing that they were exceptional in many other ways. Their selflessness, honesty, simplicity, and the harmony between their beliefs and their practices, was something I had never seen before. I became so comfortable with them that I would stay nights at their place, uninvited.
The formal purpose behind our trip to India was to visit schools. The first experience in this regard was on our first day in Lucknow, at a school called Navuge Radiance. I came out of it completely dazed. The reception awaiting us was amazing. Hundreds of schoolgirls crowded at the entrance craning their necks to have a look; microphones, reporters, cameras flashing away; someone parting the crowd to make way for us; elaborate arrangements and decorations, and thunderous applause.
My original impression of our visits to schools had been that of having an ordinary tour of the school, and perhaps getting to talk to some students there. Instead we were greeted with an amazing reception, and with a meticulously prepared show consisting of beautiful classical dances, drama and poetry. Instead of lunch, a banquet was arranged for us. I don’t think I ever digested it all completely. (and that’s not the food I speak of – the fact that my friends were shocked at my ‘expansion’ when I returned, says it all so far as the food is concerned.)
But meeting the students was more of an experience. A group of around 50 would be allowed into the lunch area where we were, and given a deadline of five minutes. In those five minutes, I would be talking to 20 girls making a ring around me. Subjects of conversation ranged from actors, to music, to boys, to politics, to academics, to friendship, to Pakistan-India relations and mutual government-bashing, and to other things. Soon they would be dragged away to allow another group to come.
Though it might have been only five minutes, the laughing, excited chatting, talking and teasing that constituted those five minutes did not end with those five minutes. The communication, not just by words, but by facial expressions, twinkling eyes and whole-hearted laughs, left an intricate impact on both, with the general feeling of unity, oneness, and a resulting love.
The schools we visited ranged from elite ones like Mirambika where learning is promoted through experience rather than exam-oriented academics, to more mainstream schools where students are prepared for local board examinations. The differences between the elite and middle class schools were noticeable, but not as stark as in Pakistan. As for the students: in mannerism, speech and confidence, there was no apparent distinction to be seen between children of the two classes. Their excitement upon meeting people from the notorious ‘Pakistan’ was perfectly equal. With each student I met, I felt as though a bond had been made, be it an unspoken one.
Meeting university students was different. They were more deeply involved in politics, more charged, more cynical and harder to convince of a possibly positive solution to the enmity between our countries. Both sides raised questions and faults about the other’s country, but always ended up acknowledging that if not all, then most, problems existing in the other’s country also prevailed in their own - the differences were that of degree, which varied with the nature of the problem.
India surely displayed its faults along with its attributes. The poverty is deeply shocking even for someone coming from Pakistan. One can point out most problems existing in one country, change some details around, and they fit quite well into an account of the problems faced by the neighbour: fundamentalism, political strife, poverty, health, education…the list is long and common.
Throughout the trip, despite being welcomed and loved so much, the emotions stirred inside me were not always positive. At one point in particular, I felt the conflict in my feelings surge, and it left me a little dazed. It was during the visit to Kanpur - we had just visited a relatively lower-middle class Muslim Jubilee School for Girls and were outside the premises, going towards our cars. As soon as the school gate opened, all we saw was people. So many, that all I could see was a blur of brown and white, and all I could hear was the loud hub-hub of many, many moving people. Then it was security officers shouting, shoving people away to make way for us. I got into a car hurriedly, and then got a chance to look around. I couldn’t see too far; people’s faces were plastered to the car windows to get a chance to see what a Pakistani looks like. Some were smiling; particularly the young ones with whom I exchanged many waves and smiles; some who were older just looked.
When security had cleared the road enough for the cars to threaten to move, we began inching away, and they began waving. I waved back. We drove through the narrow streets of Kanpur that way: the entire colony had left off all activity to see us pass. Men and boys lined the streets, women and young girls leaned out from balconies, children squeezed between the balcony railings.
The experience is one I’ve described but cannot explain; maybe the description in itself will serve as the explanation. We were dressed alike, looked alike, yet as foreign as someone from Timbuktoo would be - they had never seen Pakistanis before. It is a different matter that they were happy about our presence there.
We had the chance to visit a village some distance from Lucknow – a comfortable, not to mention exceptionally beautiful, village. I can safely say that the environment, lifestyle, the physical and social structure and the extreme hospitality we saw is completely congruent in both India and Pakistan.
Many, who would think me an idealistic peacenik by now, could legitimately question: if the picture is indeed this rosy, why on earth does the present situation of war and tension prevail?
The picture is indeed as rosy as I have described. To understand this, you will have to experience what my fellow students and I saw and felt. But the problems exist because the political fronts put up by each country take control of its people’s minds by creating an image about the other using the media, the education system, prejudiced historical ‘facts’, and other subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Both governments defy the fundamental reason for their existence, which is to implement the wishes of the people. The people on both sides want peace but the governments on both sides do not. Surely they can’t be stupid enough not to understand what the people want….or can they?. The ‘people’ I speak of are not just the educated ones who have been told that promoting peace is the correct thing to do, as is commonly perceived.
In bazaars, restaurants, villages, and public meetings of Delhi, Lucknow, Agra, and wherever else we went, people were exceptionally pleased and good to me upon knowing that I was from Pakistan. They were usually the initiators of conversation on peace and the unfortunate politics between the two countries. They would inquire which city I was from, and almost always tell me about some relative of theirs living somewhere in Pakistan.
I realize that I have just contradicted myself. Throughout this essay I have been talking about how one can’t tell a Pakistani face from an Indian one, and just now in the paragraph above I mentioned that when people realized I was Pakistani, they were good to me. The incident I will relate was a recurring one, and explains how I was identified as Pakistani:
I walked into a dark, dusty little handicraft store in Delhi and began examining some wooden figures. I picked up an interesting carved face and asked in Urdu/Hindi,
“How much?”
“One hundred fifty,” he replied.
“That’s ridiculous, keep that price for the foreigners,” I retorted.
After a slight pause he asks, “Where are you from?”
“Why, don’t I look like I’m from around here?”
"No, it’s not that….you talk very politely, you couldn’t be from Delhi
for sure."
I laughed and told him I was from Pakistan, and we struck up a fairly long conversation. He ended up selling me the face for fifty.
I don’t think I can possibly write here all that I felt and experienced because I can’t remember it all just now and even if I did, I’d have to write a book rather than an essay. It’s time for us people to force our governments to do what it is we want done, and the only way that will be achieved is if their power is threatened. The millions on both sides of the border want peace, even if not for humanitarian reasons, then for economic reasons because it is the vast majority of the population in both countries who suffer terribly due to the exorbitant amount spent on defence. As a result we are robbed of the very basics of life. People die of starvation and disease inflicted by their own government, not by war.
Peace is possible. People make it possible when they want to. I think we want to, so it will happen.