:salam2:
May this message find all of you in best of your health and Imaan. Aameen.
This is a challenging task for all of us and time is of Essence. We are hoping for a positive outcome.
The occassion is Pakistan’s Independence day and it is something about a project I am involved in to celebrate the joyous day on Gupshup. I am hoping to receive a positive response…
The idea is to create a members timeline starting a week before independence date..
The project will include stories of several members’ families:
*- those who were in what became pakistan, and *
- those who migrated..
It’s going to be a collection of memoirs, perhaps, told by your elders to you between August 8, 1947 - August 14, 1947 …
I personally believe that it’s a great way to reflect upon our history and the very day of August 14, instead of just traditionally celebrating the day without knowing or understanding what it actually means to us and what it actually demands to all of us.
The format of these memories should be as follows:
Write down a summary for those 7 days in 1947… like What has been going on in the family for the last few months, year..etc..a background, and then each day, we will have a ticker from them, something like this:
7th august, my grandfather is walking in anguish, he stil has not decided whether to go to pakistan, a land for which he has strived for, and sees his future there. and torn between leaving his family as most of the khandan does not want to leave ancesteral lands. There is big discussion on what to do, teh risks of moving to a new place, losing contact with one’s zameen..but then he now looks to pakistan as his Zameen his land, his people. The worries exist that once brits leave and the borders are formed, how soon will it be that they will even see each other again, if ever…
8th august, decision is still hanging..dada has made arrangements to leave, saying he can always change his mind and not go, but he would rather be ready to leave if that s what his final decision is. Business atmosphere is bad, no one is buying property, and he knows that as he leaves, he is leaving his assets..what he thought was security for his kids. House does not look any different, people still coming and goign with the mehmaan daari as usual, if you look at it, at the surface nothing seems to have changed. news about violence from different cities has been od some concern, but in this town where ppl of all religons have been coexisting pecefully for decades, there is little concern, but the concern is for people who may be travelling to pakistan. how, what, when, where to..these are the questions"
You can see that it will require talking to your family elders (or if you are one, bringing those days back in your mind) and bringing their views, their memories and their passion to share with all of us on GS, and you know what, we may all learn a little.
Make sure to follow the guidelines given as an example…
There will be a parallel thread where members can post their own entries without the restriction of above format on their own and discuss about the entries in both threads…
We welcome all of you to participate in this project and celebrate the day in the spirit of love and unity.
The deadline of submission is set to July 31st; however, it may be extended for few days since the project starting date is August 8th.
One last thing:
All our tempraments and personality quirks in Forums like Pakistan Affairs send a message that we all are patriots… and we get it from our parents, and we have stories to tell. When it’s written, hopefully it will be a small reminder to all of us that at the end of the day, we all love the same thing, our elders do so, (or did for those who are no longer with us) and that is much bigger than the minutia we argue on. So somone whose family migrated, someone whose did not, different ethnicities, different cities, different provinces. The similarities as well as differences of people’s experiences would be good to read.
So, let me know if you can do it, because I think all of you can do it given your intellectual participation in the forums, I have very high expectations from members like you…
**Forward your entries to my PM box or email them to **[EMAIL=“[email protected]”][email protected]
Regards,
GSUP August 14th Celebration Organizing Team.