Melancholy

Just finished reading Mistry's A Fine Balance and I don't know what to do with myself. The poverty and misery he documents is something so real, touching on the same sadness that pervades everytime I visit my family and friends in Pakistan. The communal hatred that is actively exacerbated by government fills me with this ridiculous rage .. makes me think I need to do something and that I actually can. My grandmother used to tell me about the year of partition with India, when both my parents' families crossed the border and were subject to some unimaginable horrors. She remembers hiding in a grain truck to cross the border, looking through cracks to see the burnt bodies of Muslim children being paraded about on stakes. My grandfather was a Brig in the army and often took military trucks to prevent mobs from burning families in their homes. This vicious history was repeated not too long ago when a train fire in Gujarat triggered inhumane violence among Hindus and Muslims in 2002. The state government declared that the train was attacked when later inquiry revealed that the fire started from within one of the coaches. The authorities were not only useless, but criminally negligent in stopping the violence. I don't think I'd flinch of those vile, corrupt men were on fire before me.

There are other sides. In Waga, a town that lies both in India and Pakistan and is about 15 miles away from Lahore, one of Pakistan's three largest cities and my hometown, Pakistani and Indian Rangers perform a ceremony to lower the national flags before sunset. Every evening they act out an elaborate display of anger, perfectly timed and coordinated: what the Pakistani soldiers are doing on our side is being replicated by the Indian soldiers on the other side of the painted white line. There are stadium style seats on either side where people come to watch the display, shouting slogans and things as if they were at a cricket match. There is a whole lot of stomping and slamming of the gates once the flags are lowered and it is all wonderfully orchestrated. If you happen to glance at the adjacent field, beyond the tent where invited guests are being served tea, you'll notice a heavily armed barbed wire fence for as far as your eye can see, betraying the reality of parody before you. I've seen this a few times as it is always a lot of fun to watch the crowds get riled up and it's an excuse to get out and enjoy a beautiful sunset and perhaps steal some breezes from the searing heat. The last time I went left me speechless. My cousins' grandfather was also a Brig in the army and had crossed the border a number of times with truckloads of families seeking asylum at that very point in 1947, when one country became two. He is extremely weak as a series of degenerative illnesses have wreaked havoc on his body. He insisted that he walk from the car on his own, his first return since his initial crossing. He watched the ceremony with as much salute as his body would allow and absolutely lost it when the Rangers lined up to salute him. I will dig up my pictures from this and post them at some point though I don't think I could ever do that moment justice. I think it is these experiences that prevent me from accepting my present tribulations as anything more than a joke. People overcome intense trials every single day, all over the world. That's what life is. That stark reality makes my life seem like such a joke. I bitch and moan all the time, but when it comes down to it everything around me is so artificial. I am grateful, but I can't help but remember that none of this is real. The real world is very far away.

Cheers for the recommendation igm. On to The Life of Pi.