Culture coalition

"SORRY I'm late," she said, sliding (a little out of breath) into the booth at the Mughal Gardens restaurant. "I walked." Saima Achria is a junior (third year college undergraduate student - freshman is the first year, sophomore, the second, senior, fourth) at the Maryland Institute of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A.

We met at a local Barnes & Noble bookstore where we were both browsing. "Are you from India?" I asked. "No!" came her terse reply, eyes unflinching, volunteering nothing. I have seen that look before, a response to the invasive curiosity of a perfect stranger. "Then you're from Pakistan?" I persisted.

Having grown up in India I am afflicted with insatiable curiosity about South Asia. "South Asia," "North America," like "here" and "there," do not refer to fixed locations but identify the orientation of the speaker.

This sometimes reminds me of the intrusive curiosity that we, as young boys, provoked growing up in India. There was the pull of the hair to see if it was real, and the pinch to test if I had a skin disease, and of course the snickering references for what we coined "gor-butt." We learned to turn the occasional harmless public hazing into a joke. Once in high school at Ooty I mooned an unusually noxious group of boys about my age. A little playful cultural friction never hurt anyone. Most of the time it was just good humoured banter about America and kindred subjects.

In America I observe South Asians going about their own business. My eye fixes on a group at a busy intersection waiting for the traffic light to turn green, a store clerk (I move to that line for service), college students huddled at a coffee bar, a gas station attendant (I inflict my Hindi on him, he feigns interest) an extended family group including grandfather in kurta or bush shirt, slacks and chappals, grandmother in sari, bindi slightly smudged, and chappals several paces behind, second generation in American casual chic walking together, youngsters in jeans, college T-shirt, nikes and baseball caps worn backwards, straggling to the rear. The three stages in accommodation. Most of the time I spare them the prying interrogation.

This is the great diaspora. The 20th-century "Huguenot" migration to America, the world's consumer-bhumi, leaving their homeland not because of religious sectarian persecution but because of underemployment, a necessary freedom revoked by licence raj like the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in late 17th-century France.

I watch for a nuance of dress, a look, sidle up closer to catch a clip of conversation. Tamil? No! Certainly not Malayalam! Can't mistake that! Sounds like stones rattling around in can, a Malayali friend once told me. Closer. Definitely Bengali! Must be losing my touch. Once I scored a bullseye. "Are you from Ballygunge (suburban Kalikata)?" I cheated a bit. The young woman introduced herself as Chatterji. "What a pickup line!" she smiled once she had recovered.

Saima was dressed in American college student chic. It was one of the first nice spring days, so few clues there. "What's your reaction to Clinton's trip to Islamabad?" I asked.

"He had to go because he went to India. All hell would have broken loose if he hadn't."

"What do you mean?"

"The crazies in our country would have gone on the rampage. They hold America responsible for all our problems. Fundamentalism is on the rise. I think there will be a revolution in Pakistan like the one in Iran. It's only a matter of time. But we have no one to blame but ourselves. We have created our own problems and only we can fix them. Did you see Khushwant Singh's article in Dawn several weeks ago?"

"No, what did he say?"

"Basically nothing new. He said that Kashmir has to be resolved before there can be any chance of peace. Both Pakistan and India are going to have to give a lot. The sad thing is nobody is listening to the Kashmiri people. It's their country. Clinton's visit may put a little pressure on Musharraf. But Clinton can't fix our problems. We have to do this ourselves." "What was it like growing up in Pakistan as a member of the Hindu minority?" I wanted to focus our conversation upon her.

"My family has experienced no discrimination. We belonged to the privileged class because of my dad's status as a businessman. I went to the best English medium school in Karachi. It was founded by the British. We celebrated all the Hindu festivals like Holi, Deepavali, Dasara, and invited our friends who were all Muslim. We went to their homes for Muslim holidays like Id. It was all very natural. I've even tried several times to fast during Ramadan. I probably know more about the Qur'an than Hinduism. I've never been to a temple. I guess we're not very religious as a family. My mother does her pujas. My father is not religious at all."

I do not define myself religiously. I don't think of myself as a Pakistani Hindu. I am a person first, then a Sindhi. Religion had little to do with our staying in Pakistan. At Partition my grandfather sent all the women and children to Bombay. He stayed in Karachi to wrap up the family business. The plan was that he would join the family later. But he didn't close the business. Instead, my whole family moved back to Karachi. We are a pretty close family. My parents are already talking marriage. They are looking around for a husband for me in Pakistan, India and Canada where we have relatives. They wouldn't pick someone I couldn't accept. Besides, I have veto power.

Saima kept talking. I listened. We were the last people in the restaurant and the maitre d' was pacing. Saima returned to the subject of her independent study course on post-colonialism. "Both my parents were born in Mumbai. My mother is from Shikarpur, my father from Sukkur, Sindh. We are Sindhis."

"Pakistan and India are the most corrupt countries in the world," she continued. "Pakistan is the most fragmented nation. India is less divided. India is making it. Pakistan isn't. For Pakistan democracy is not an option right now. We haven't developed the habit of democracy and we don't have leaders committed to it, or at least who know how to make it work. Musharraf can't turn things around in a short time. He is doing his best. But my generation is cynical, passivist, especially here in America. Pakistani and Indian students are a single community here. We hang out together. We don't care about the politics back home."

"But I am a Pakistani. I spent the first 18 years of my life there. I owe something to my country. (Pause) I am a painter. I need free expression. Besides, how can a painter make a living in Pakistan? I have to think of the future. I have a joint Canadian- Pakistani passport. My whole family does. It is kind of like keeping the back door open. I could live in any number of places, Canada, India, here in America. But Pakistan is my home."

"I am very neutral about the India and Pakistan issue. I don't really know where I belong. I can barely read and write Urdu. I am a Hindu but not a very religious one. If Pakistan and India go to war I won't belong anywhere. When my friends were outraged by the anti-Muslim riots in India after Babri Masjid I asked them about the anti-Hindu reaction in Pakistan. Low-caste Hindus in Sindh were attacked. Their temples were destroyed or desecrated. My friends didn't have an answer. We are free to talk with each other this way."

"Most low caste Hindu Sindhis are trying to leave to go to India. They have no representation in government. My father employs them because he feels responsible for them. Their lives are not very good."

The waiter came over and asked us how much longer we would be. He had to close to set up for dinner. "You know," Saima added, " in 50-odd years we have had a lousy track record in democracy. There was such euphoria when it all began. We've lost our way. We'll have to find it again for ourselves."

These were words spoken with an exuberance inspired by a beautiful spring day, reveling in the freedom of college years. There was sadness in her voice, at other times steely determination. Words spoken from the heart-candid, biting, wistful and honest.

BRUCE C.ROBERTSON

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