With the recent Samjhota Express tragedy I have been thinking about the Pakistan-India ties all over again.---once again. I was born in Bombay on 15th January 1947. One purpose of saying this is to underline that it was before the birth of Pakistan. I have never ever been to India, and I have begun to find this very strange now. I am unsure of whether I have a dormant desire to visit my place of birth as I say all this.
My parents were born in Madras. My late father never visited India after the family moved to Pakistan in late 1947. My mother visited Bombay once about 45 years ago. There has been absolutely no desire or yearning to visit India---even though people around me keep talking of the family and friends they have in India. The emotional baggage that weighs them down, in a way.
I must mention here that my mother's only sister (and younger too) who lives with her husband in Lancaster (UK) has in recent years has begun travelling to Bombay (now Mumbai) to meet the few old friends that she still has there---from the days when she studied in Bombay before Independence---, that is the dismantling of India. She is now in her seventies and despite her health challenges she travels there for the emotional rewards it brings to her. A sort of rejuvenation---I would imagine. Her husband, an English doctor, willingly accompanies her, and finds it equally fulfilling his own wish. Both of their sons have never been to India.
Having said all this, back to the Samjhota Express which one hopes will not be packed off into the proverbial "cold storage." I have been thinking of how different my own feelings would have been if I had relatives or close friends in India. If I was one of those who have divided families extended into India, I could have been a very worried, anxious man all my life, on this count too.!!
As I write thoughts go out to numerous men and women in my life who reside in this country, and have wanted to travel to India---primarily to visit their families in various cities, and towns---big and small. Their biggest hurdle, their nagging frustration, their never ending fear was whether they would be able to get visas from the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. And would they get the visas for the places they wanted to go? Would they be get the visas for each and every member of the family who wanted to travel to India.? Would they harassed more by the intelligence men around the Indian High Commission.?
The subject of visas for India is one that I have heard and lived with for almost over four decades---and quietly but certainly it has had a discouraging effect on me, in terms of wanting to go to India, especially to my birthplace. A time was when there was an Indian consulate here, and visas were issued from Karachi, too. Even then it was depressing to hear of the weary queues for visas or the police reporting formalities in India. Even then I felt relieved that I was not from a divided family. Or else I might have also been seeking visas for India, and going through an ordeal of sorts.
Some thoughts also go out in the direction of the peace talks and processes between Pakistan and India, and the much publicised tracks and tracks of quiet diplomacy, which at times appears to be a journey without rewards in fruitless. I am reminded here also of the terrorism that has entered into the bilateral ties---and it seems that mutual mistrust misleads millions on both sides. If there are divided families in both countries, there is deep-rooted suspicion too. There is a despair written large in the hearts of divided families.
I am reminded here of a young Indian (now middle aged Pakistani) woman who came here almost 35 years ago. I would like to believe that she didn't know what she was opting for when she agreed to her marriage. She belongs to the lower income group, and now that her husband died three years ago, her financial condition is worse. Her family in India is still her most dependable emotional bank and material resource.
Over the years, her biggest happiness was to have Indian visa from time to time; her largest fears and failures were when the visas were refused. Or when the Karachi consulate closed because of which, like hundreds and hundreds of others, she sulked into deep silence. I have not spoken to her about the Samjhota Express and sometimes in life it is best (or better) to leave sore, sensitive points alone for another day. Individuals like her are grim themes that need to be written about in detail.
There is indeed much that can be said on the subject of the state of families and family life in Pakistani society. The joint family system has disintegrated, on the face of it, and yet the need for integrated jointed families appears to be always there. Nuclear or single unit families appear not to be able to cope with the problems of daily living. Therefore, it is understandable if families on either side of the border seek (even yearn) for the beautiful bondage that all families have the potential of providing.
In the ultimate, divided families are a dreadful, painful proposition. But the fact remains that they exist, the world over, across boundaries---through varied terrains and domains---where the division gives to the human condition tears, trauma and tragedy beyond words.