Indians who believe the narrative that Pakistanis hate India find it mind-boggling when they experience the intense love that ordinary Pakistanis have for them
Samir Gupta
Indians and Pakistanis share the most bizarre relationship possible between the peoples of any two countries. We love and loathe each other to the extreme. Our governments and militaries maintain a tense relationship even at the best of times and yet, through the darkness we experience moments of pure magic.
Twenty-one years ago, I visited London as a young software professional trying to live on the cheap. I would walk to the end of Brick Lane that had a restaurant called Clifton Tandoori, owned by a Pakistani, which served cab drivers and students.
On my first visit to the restaurant, I told the owner that I was from India and that did not seem to make him happy. Whenever I went to the restaurant for dinner, the Pakistani owner would complain about “Indian duplicity” over the years.
Initially, that would upset me but I kept quiet since that was the cheapest restaurant in the area. But after a couple of visits, I started noticing something strange. He would always give me extra portions of vegetables and daal. He also started kneading whole wheat flour to cook rotis only for me since I had mentioned that I did not like maida, which is refined and bleached flour. It was almost as if his grumpiness was a put-on while he really cared for me deep down.
Five years later, I began to frequently visit Oslo, Norway for business. There was a Pakistani-owned restaurant there called Shahjahan. On my second visit there, I got talking to the manager who was from Faisalabad, Pakistan. At one point in the discussion I said to him, “Aap aur mein to bhai hain, yeh to siasat hai jis ne hamay juda kar rakhha hai” (you and I are brothers, it is just politics that has kept us apart). His facial expressions changed and he became a little emotional.
At the end of the meal, as I pulled out my credit card to pay, he declined, saying, “Aap mere bhai ho. Bhaiyon say koi paisa leta hai” (You’re my brother. Who takes money from brothers). No amount of cajoling worked and I couldn’t stop smiling.
Over the next few visits to that restaurant, I was always served lots of food in a very loving manner.
Another five years later, as the Indian cricket team prepared to visit Pakistan, I shared my experiences with some friends and suggested that we should also go to Pakistan. However, I failed to convince any of them and we ended up not going. Subsequently, when the Indian media reported stories about the incredible welcome that Pakistanis gave the Indian visitors, I had my “I told you so” moment.
Fast forward nine more years to a cold February evening in a suburb of Washington DC. I was busy preparing samosas at my friend Anwar Iqbal’s house. A senior journalist, he was about to take me to meet a few Pakistani friends of his. Bushra, his wife rolled the dough and I filled the jackets and fried them. Before we left, I requested her to taste some and she gave me a thumbs up.
Swara Bhaskar: blown over by the warmth and love she received in Pakistan
We drove over to meet his friends at a restaurant one of them ran. We sat in one corner and had a wonderful conversation over chai> from their kitchen and our homemade samosas. I was the centre of everyone’s attention, getting compliments for the samosas and the “zabardast chutney” and answering questions about what Indians thought about Pakistan.
Just before we left, someone said to me, “Yeh sara masla na aapkay media ka banaya hua hai. Pata naheen kya problem hai unhay” (It’s your media that has created these issues. Goodness knows what their problem is).
“Really?” I asked quizzically. “Hamara media kyun aisa karega?” (Why would our media do this?).
The next day, Anwar sahib took me to a dinner and informal meeting with Pakistani journalists based in Washington DC. I spent a lot of time trying to convince them to provide a more positive coverage for India Pakistan peace. After listening to me very patiently for a very long time, a senior journalist said, “Why don’t you have this conversation with the Indian journalists? They are the ones who are arrogant and need to hear this more than us”.
I asked Anwar sahib to organize a meeting with some Indian journalists in the DC area and he did. I met a few of them in the Press Club and repeated my request to help build a more positive relationship between the two countries. They listened to me very patiently and then one of them said, “Have you ever been to Pakistan? This Aman ki Asha mush is a very Punjabi upper middle class phenomenon. A large majority of Pakistanis have been taught from day one that India is the eternal enemy of Pakistan and they hate us.”
He went on give examples of Pakistani arrogance and belligerence, reminding us of “the duplicity of Pakistanis”. For instance, Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited Lahore in good faith and the whole nation supported him in his quest for peace in South Asia only to be betrayed by Pakistan in Kargil. Then there was Mumbai 2008. For a few seconds, all my romantic notions about peace with Pakistan flew out of the window. 
“The reality,” said the journalist, “is that there is no reliable negotiator for peace in Pakistan. The common man and the civilian government want peace but the security agencies do not let that happen”.
It was a grim assessment and some of his arguments were indeed irrefutable. I contended that it was important to allow people-to-people interaction in order to melt the ice and intensify the demand for peace from within both countries. However, it was clear that I was not very successful in convincing them, just as I had been unsuccessful in convincing the Pakistanis.
I hope that the two governments see the madness of the onerous visa restrictions placed on visitor visas by the two (especially by India).
And yet, I keep coming across accounts of Indians being surprised by the warm reception they got while visiting Pakistan. These include the popular interview of the Indian television actress Swara Bhaskar recently in which she described very beautifully her own experience of the warmth and love she received during her visits to Pakistan.
Most Indians have grown up believing the narrative that Pakistanis hate India and it boggles our mind when we experience the intense love that we sometimes get from Pakistanis. Only in Pakistan can a cricket match with Zimbabwe produce a huge banner proclaiming the fans’ love for India. Only in Pakistan do we see a special place for India in the unofficial national narrative, despite the projection of India as an implacable enemy that has threatened Pakistan’s security since inception.
The ordinary Pakistanis’ love for India prevails despite the conspiracy theorists who attribute almost everything that goes wrong to India and its security agency RAW. This affection abounds even though many in Pakistan blame India for Pakistan’s status of being in the doghouse of international cricket hosts.
I hope that the two governments see the madness of the onerous visa restrictions placed on visitor visas by the two (especially by India). I hope Indians get the opportunity to visit Pakistan and make up their own mind about the country and its people instead of the conditioned belief we inherit.
By the time this article goes online, I would have had my visa interview at the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi and I would know if and when I will be able to visit Lahore and experience Pakistan for myself.
The writer is an IT professional and peace activist based in Ghaziabad, India. Email: [email protected]
