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In fact, not only are we colleagues especially as Indians and Pakistanis, we are good friends, too. And we do not necessarily need to apologise for these ties. We attend functions in each other's homes, we break bread and our children grow up without the slightest touch of prejudice or bias. They school together, even have playdates and weekend 'spend the days' in each other's homes. Just like the two nations we are neighbours except we act like neighbours not adversaries.
With both nations sharing a history of a thousand years and much more, why have the last 70 been pockmarked with hostility? Have we been such easy targets for our respective political luminaries who have found it so convenient to strum our feelings to their advantage?
In a personal aside, I have worked seven years with a gentleman whom I thought was from Pakistan until one day he said, 'I am off to Hyderabad' and I said, 'oh great, we have a Hyderabad, too. He looked at me oddly and said, 'that's where I am going.'
You do not want to hear the rest of the story but it does illustrate the pointlessness of endless rivalry.
The sincerity that is taken for granted when we are abroad probably melts a little like ice cream in the sun when we go back home on vacation. It is sad but valid that enough of us mute discussing our personal ties and day-to-day interactions with each other when back home because there is this 'you cannot really be friends' stance and we choose the safer route of shutting up rather than snarling ourselves in tedious explanation.
Then we come back to the adopted home carrying gifts for each other and sweets and mild guilt covered by enthusiastic and genuine affection at the reunification.
And you might think I am being naïve and fey but you can pretend for a while only not for years, year after year. In that lies the kernel of a new generation and a new deal forged in the crucible of peace and generosity.
bikram@khaleejtimes.com
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