I think I am a nice dinner guest. I remember a lot of witty anecdotes, have a decent sense of humor and am respectful to others point of view. Unless I am on a table full of Pakistanis.
So, I went to this birthday party thrown by my good friends, a couple actually, one of which is a Pakistani Canadian married to a Pakistani American. Obviously there were a lot of Pakistanis at the dinner and as luck would have it, I was the only Indian. One thing led to another and soon three of us were having a full-fledged argument in a fully crowded cafe. First of all, I am amazed at the absolute necessity of most Indians and Pakistanis to tell the other side how wrong they are. May be they just want an audience to get their message across. I agree that we have come a long way since the time my Indian class-mates kept asking if there was a punishment for rape in Pakistan and my Pakistani cousins wondering if there were mosques in India. That was during the time of Doordarshan and PTV. Thankfully we have moved beyond that. But not by much. Here is a sample from the long argument.
India is not really secular.
It is funny to hear it from a Pakistani whose country constitutionally discriminates on the basis of religion and a non-Muslim can’t be the head of state.
Yes, but it is an un-written rule in India that there will be no non-Hindu head of state.
We just had Kalam as our President.
Yes, but there will be no PM.
But we have a Sikh PM who is a non-Hindu. Then we have Sonia Gandhi who almost became the PM.
There will be no Muslim PM.
Do you know anyone who was capable and discriminated against?
And so on and so on.
A&F, I am sorry for ruining your birthday party, even though I was no more than a 33% culprit.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
The only way to avoid these conversations is to *steer clear of politics*. A lot of the times, people dangle these baits in front of us.
The trick is not to take it. Not every sentence merits a response.
you forgot to write about “pataakhay”
congratulations for indianmuslimblog – Nice work!
Atleast in Pakistan you only witness what is written which makes things clear for all communities. In India we have secularism, but we have babri masjid, gujarat, etc. We have Reservations but too much paper work to do and rarely do the deserving candidated from the ummah receive it…. Too many examples to point out….
Mohib,
Thats a nice little anecdote. Makes me remember on such episode of mine. My two friends, one a pakistani muslim girl and anther an indian muslim guy and me were having a conversation abt India vs Pakistan.
As usual, i was defending India at all cost and my paki friend went back to the pet peeve that muslims are discriminated heavily in India.
Then, my indian friedn butted in and categorily replied he has never faced much discrimination in India.
Now, this conversation did end up in a huge fight between the couple….but its still funny how we will never agree on certain things..no matter wat.
personally, i tend to think that the progress of India and pakistan cannot really be compared…but thats just my 2 cents…