20

This tremulous land

A
By Sarah Singh

A filmmaker
shares stories of
people whose
lives are split
apart, sixty-seven
years on, by
continued
political
earthquakes

few years ago, I set out to make a

film in an attempt to understand
the history and legacy of the 1947
Partition, particularly as it related to the Northwestern side
of the Indian Subcontinent.
There was global focus on
this geographical area in the
fallout of the 9/11 attack in
the United States; its direct geographical relationship to the continued contest-ground of
Kashmir; and the lingering (and perhaps
deepening) divide
between India
and Pakistan,
which has
been partly responsible for the instability of the entire region.
The resulting film, The Sky
Below, is structurally a kind of
travelogue and portrait of a place.
Content-wise, it is a complex work
of art that investigates history and
humanity. I met many, many people
and heard many, many stories over
thousands of kilometers of travel.
Some stories were memories;
some stories were

Jinnah Store in
Bandipore, Kashmir

rationales; and some stories were

never spoken, but nonetheless
found other ways to be expressed.
The political earthquake of 1947
had split a people apart in ways
they did not expect.
In these last few years, curiosity about Partition has caught the
imagination of many who recognise that time is running out to capture first-hand accounts of 1947.
Yet, some argue that todays young
generation was born much after
Partition occurred and its not relevant to them, so why is it even a
topic of discussion?
Since I made The Sky Below,
the India-Pakistan (and Kashmir)
relationship never seems to be very
far from my conversation and circumstances. Last year, I was invited for the first-ever Lahore Literary Festival to be on a panel about
Nation, Nationalism, and Identity.
This past April, I was in Amritsar
helping to work on a political campaign. Both locations featured
prominently in the film, and I was
thrilled to return to these historically connected cities.
One location I visited
in 2006 and then in 2014
is Pul Kanjari, a village
which is historically important to both Lahore
and Amritsar. It is set
deep into the farmlands,
far off the main Atari
road; yet, for all its
serenity and seclusion,
it is barely a kilometer
from the international
boundary. There is an
Indian Border Security
Force (BSF) encampment right next to the
beautifully
maintained 19th centuryera heritage site.
In 2006, I remem-

Milestone in LOC area, Uri, Kashmir. Photos: Sarah Singh, 2014

ber standing in front of the ten-foot
high fence next to Pul Kanjari and
looking out towards the Pakistani
Punjab. The dust kept rising and
falling in the wake of a passing
tractor or from farm activity in the
fields. The BSF guards on duty at
the border were napping under
their watchtower because of the
heat. Most symbolically ho ever
was the sound of the azan floating
effortlessly towards India from
Pakistan like an invisible reality.
In 2014, I visited the Line of
Control (LoC) area in Uri, on the
Indian side Kashmir and other
areas nearby which tourists dont
normally go to because they seem
to be drawn to the trifecta of
Sonamarg, Gulmarg, and Aru Valley. When I visited the usual tourist
places in 2006, it seemed to me that
the refrain was quite clearly about

Kashmiri Independence. This time,

eight years later, the refrain was
quite clearly about a Pakistani
Kashmir. Interestingly, the many
people I heard who aligned with
Pakistan had never visited Pakistan. It was like a house they
could see but could not enter.
There was a strong call for Modi to
become Prime Minister because it
would further justify their anger towards Hindustan. Well, Modi is in
place now. What will this justified
anger bring forth?
I met a schoolteacher, who, unlike most others, had actually visited Pakistan. He came back a
changed man. Pakistan is visible to
the naked eye from his home in
Uri. It is not a far off distant land
that features only on nightly news.
He could walk there in ten minutes
if there werent thousands of guns

pointing down the road. It is quite

literally the next hill in an unbroken, meandering landscape. Like
most others in this district along
the LoC region, he had wanted
Kashmir to be with Pakistan. He
wanted to enter this house that he
could see so well. But since visiting Pakistan, he no longer harbours the same desires. What
changed him, I wondered.
What this one mans story signifies is that direct, first-hand experience is the key to fostering a
sense of History, a sense of Identity, and a sense of understanding.
Track Two activists on both sides

Wednesday, Auugst 20, 2014

of the Indo-Pak border have been

demonstrating this for decades. It
is the lack of direct experience in
which fractured identities continue to create fractured histories.
Another gentleman I met in Uri
is battling to regain ancestral property because the tangled wires of
the LoC happened to come down
all around his home. He had to flee
without a second thought and
without compensation, not unlike
some who fled their ancestral
homes during Partition. We managed to have tea on his property by
way of the Indian security forces
hospitality.
What a strange experience to
sit with such formality in a circle
of men, one of whom was living
out the nightmare of being so
close to his home but not able to
go to its door; another man who
was by default in a position of
power to now hold the keys to the
door because it was a basecamp;
and yet another young man who
was eagerly engaging in lighthearted conversation with an Indian soldier, but kept eyeing the
very visible Pakistani army posts
with awe. We sipped our sweet hot
tea while chickens and dogs
roamed freely, quite oblivious to
the political tremors below the
surface.
These are but two stories of
people whose lives are split apart
by these continued political earthquakes, sixty-seven years on.
Sixty-seven years is a lifetime for
some. Constantly watching out for
the next earthquake throughout
ones lifetime is no way to live.

Born in Patiala, Sarah Singh spends her time primarily between

New York and South Asia. After her critically acclaimed film on
Pakistan and India "The Sky Below", she is working on "A Million
Rivers" a feature film set in India and Pakistan starring Om Puri
and Lillete Dubey. Website: www.sarahsingh.com

B R I E F S
Celebrating Independence When India spoke to Pakistan Cross-border
national anthem (s)
Day together
A
I
Indian and Pakistani students studying abroad become
friends, call for peace and a visa-free South Asia

By Sehyr Mirza
group of Indian and Pakistani students celebrated their countries independence from Britain in Britain
itself raising slogans of peace, love
and co-existence.
Calling themselves Global Desis, these students from University of Bath in the south west
of the United Kingdom, gathered together last
week holding flags of India and Pakistan. They
believe that war is a language of vested interests and that it is the common people like
themselves who understand words of love and
peace.
Fired by these ideals, eleven friend --,
Apurva Mistry, Maryam Saeed, Arawind
Prabhu, Natasha Mistry, Gargi Singh, Aaman
Purkayastha, Zeeshan Akhtar, Aseem Uppal,
Shashank Pandya, Haris Ali and Talha J.
Pirzada -- decided to do something. They decorated their rooms and the university library
with posters bearing slogans like: Make Peace,
Not War, Long Live Indo-Pak Friendship,
India-Pakistan Friends Forever and Global
Citizens. They organised a party where they
jointly cut a cake to mark the Independence of
Pakistan and India from British rule.
In the last one year at University of Bath, I
have spent the most precious moments with
my Pakistani friends, said Apurva Mistry from
Mumbai. We have laughed, cooked, danced,
celebrated festivals, shared secrets and chatted
for hours together. I see no difference between
people on both sides. Why then the hatred and
enmity?
Maryam Saeed from Lahore whose grandparents migrated to Lahore from the other side

Maryam Saeed of Lahore and Apurva Mistri

of Mumbai hold each others countrys flags
in solidarity.
of the border says that partition was one of the
worst human tragedies of all time. While we
must cherish our freedom and independence
today, we must also remember those who lost
their so much back in 1947. Borders can divide
land, not people, she adds.
Partition couldnt separate our hearts. A
visa-free subcontinent is all that we need to explore more about each other to dispel myths,
says Zeeshan Akhtar from Bhopal.
These young peace preachers call for their
fellow Indians and Pakistanis to strive for a
peaceful region free from war, terrorism and
jingoism. Its never too late, in fact high time
that we free ourselves from the legacy of colonialism, they say.
Sehyr Mirza studies English Literature
at Goldsmiths, University of London and is
a classically trained vocalist from Lahore.
sehyrmirza@gmail.com

Milne Do: Indian and Pakistani students demonstrate solidarity in the land of their erstwhile colonial masters
THE FIRST STEP
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Post: aman ki asha c/o The News,
I.I. Chundrigar Road, Karachi

fter Google's
wildly popular online ad
Reunion last year,
another video effectively bridging the
Indo-Pak divide and
bringing people together is going viral.
All India Bakchod, a
comedy collective,
in
collaboration
with Khaula Jamil
of Humans of
Karachi and a crew
in Pakistan, asked
random Indians and Bonding over shared interests
Pakistanis on the Image: courtesy Buzzfeed.co
streets of Mumbai
and Karachi what they thought of the other country.
The directors then got them to talk to each other on
the phone and wish one another for Independence Day.
The result: a smart, sassy, funny video that shatters
stereotypes and suspicions most effectively. See:
http://bit.ly/IndTalkPk

ndian origin Zeshan Bagewadi and Pakistani origin

Nushmia Khan, both based in the USA, recently
collaborated to produce a video that they uploaded
to the web on August 14-15, for Pakistan and Indias
Independence Days. Bagewadi sings the national anthem of Pakistan, and then India, with similar splitscreen video images from either side. The powerful,
moving
video
can
be
viewed
at: A unique collaboration: Zeshan Bagewadi
http://bit.ly/borderanthem
(India) and Nushmia Khan (Pakistan)

India, Pakistan diplomats

at South Asian Mosaic

he Consuls General of India and Pakistan in

Toronto, Akhilesh Mishra and Asghar Ali Golo are
coming together at various events, like Stroke of
the Masters, an art exhibition in Mississauga, a suburb
of Toronto that is part of the Mosaic South Asian Festival. Featuring the works of prominent artists like M.F.
Husain, Jamini Roy, Thota Venkuntum, Jatin Das, and
S.H. Raza, the exhibit will run till Sept 1. The CGs were
Togetherness: India and Pakistan Consuls General also guests at a much-appreciated mushaira organised
Akhilesh Mishra (Centre, with his wife) and Asghar Ali by Mosaic on the occasion of India and Pakistan IndeGolo at an art exhibition. Photo: N. Balani
pendence Days.

Not too dissimilar

By Imaduddin Ahmed
avinggrown upinEngland and
attended collegeinCalifornia,I
sawmyIndianorIndiandiaspora
friendsonlyasfellowSouthAsians
brownbrothersandsisterswith
similar tastes and values who supported the
wrongcricketteam,someprayinginadifferent
way.Itwasn'tuntilImovedtoPakistanforafew
years that I started seeing how much South
Asiansattemptedtodifferentiatethemselves.
In Pakistan, I inquired and discovered what caste my Hindu ancestors
belonged to, catalysed by a question by
a colleague on my first day at work at a
women's rights NGO.
I learnt the South Asian prejudices
that beauty was predicated on a light
skin-tone and, for men, sharp features
and height. I learnt too that these features were associated with higher
caste Indians and with Muslims descendants of invaders were regarded
as more beautiful than the indigenous
people who had constructed the
Indus's most ancient civilisations.
Why, then, the likes of Shiv Sena
targets Muslims in India as foreigners
(whose ancestors were mostly Hindu),
seems a bit arbitrary. It was in Pakistan
that I learnt how, in spite of inhabiting

At Wagah border, 2006. Author photo credit: Asim Rafiqui

an Islamic republic, Pakistanis retain
their un-Islamic caste prejudices, and
that these prejudices allow many to
feel superior, as well as to treat Christians, often the descendants of Dalits,
as untouchables. While learning how
somewhat physically different
we were from many Indians, I also learnt how similar our mentalities were.
For all the prejudices I
ridiculed, I found myself
starting to subconsciously
imbibe them, and my recent
friendships with Indians and
Hindus were coloured by
them. Where I previously yearned for
dark and lovely South Asian girls, I
started favouring the light-skinned
ones, and I've enjoyed teasing Brahmin

girls I've dated that they had lost their

caste. (Apparently for fear of losing
hers, one of my ancestors refused to
share the crockery her son had used,
or hug him, after he converted to
Islam). I now guess (to myself) a person's caste by considering their surname and
looks, and try to figure out
whether their life choices
(profession, partner, extracurricular activities) have
been affected by it.
Hussein
(name
changed to protect privacy) was the first Indian friend I
made after moving to Pakistan. We
connected through blogging while I
was in Lahore, and he in Mumbai.
We were initially drawn to each

other by a fascination with each other's

otherness. He wanted to know what
Pakistan was like, his thirst having
been whet by a book called Husband
of a Fanatic about my (and Amitava
Kumar's) relatives in Pakistan, and
about Hindu extremism in India. I had
never known a Muslim Indian, and
wanted to know if he felt marginalised,
what his daily struggles were, and
which cricket team he supported. (I
myself failed Norman Tebbit's test of
being a true Brit for supporting Pakistan).
When we finally met in the UK, he
shared with me Tehelka's coverage of
the 2002 Gujarat riots, and details of his
own tragic loss in those riots.
Despite seeing an indecent proportion of his compatriots support the
man responsible for inciting those
riots, he says that he is glad that his
grandparents didnt cross the border. I
understand his view: whereas in India,
you aren't safe if youre a Muslim, in
Pakistan you aren't safe if youre the
wrong type of Muslim. Pakistan and
India aren't too dissimilar.
British and Pakistani, Imaduddin
Ahmed has blogged as 'The Lost Pakistani' for GQ India and co-authored
'Pakistan, Rebranded' with Kapil
Komireddi for The Boston Globe. This
article is part of a fortnightly series for
Aman ki Asha from Friendships
Across Borders: Aao Dosti Karein, an
initiative to promote friendship
between Pakistanis and Indians www.facebook.com/fabaaodostikarein

A peace initiative whose time has come...

Destination Peace: A commitment by the Jang Group, Geo and The Times of India Group to
create an enabling environment that brings the people of Pakistan and India closer together,
contributing to genuine and durable peace with honour between our countries.