If you are reading this then it is very obvious that you are acquainted with the English language. Considering the readership of this blog ,you are,in all probability,an English speaking citizen of a particular country,for instance India. Again this article can also be read by an English speaking “resident” of Bangladesh,or for that matter,that of the USA. Then the only superficial difference between the readers would be on the basis of their nationality. With that idea well placed,I proceed to the main point.
Looking at the exchange of POWs across the Wagah,I was suddenly caught up in a wave of questions that sensationalized the whole process. What is this Wagah border? A ceremonial gateway between two nations,the identities of these two nations being at cross-roads between the gates!!
I wondered what these POWs would be feeling at that particular moment,getting transported from one country to another,which resembled like Siamese twins even after more than five decades of their separation.they may have felt uprooted and dislocated but was it India that they longed for,or was it their family,their village or their friends back home??
India and Pakistan are two countries that have shared history so much so that the birth of one was out of the womb of another. Looking at the TV screen I was caught up in the flux of identity that was part of my existence in the subcontinent,yet was not thoroughly deciphered.
There was a benevolent,yet sublime,feeling of mutual camadeire that I was sharing with the news reporter,alongwith a sense of suspicion about the treatment of “our” soldiers at the Pakistani prison. To add to my confusion, I could hear the radio belting out “Durr”,which is one of my favourite songs;incidentally composed by a Pakistani group called Strings.
I realized that a country is not made of people or cultures. Those are transcendental. But it is made of borders-invisible fences that we build,to shut ourselves off from “others”. Borders are a political necessity but as a culture and people,it is flimsy.
A world without borders is not possible. Theoretically,there are no lines drawn between nations,no barren strips of land called the “no man’s land”, no trenches or soldiers with guns. The landscape across this flimsy reality is constant. But borders allow us to have a neat view of things. It is easy to classify, easy to govern within a system of order. Borders are needed to define our identity, a sense of belonging to a herd!!
Identity is mercurial in the realm of politics,but on a personal level it remains constant. We are extending a friendly hand towards our,till now,hostile counterpart but that is the same country we want to squash in a less threatening space of a cricket field,where again our passions are governed by a barbed wire drawn out on a piece of land.
