STOP THE HATRED!!!

I remember playing cricket on that sandy ground near my house in Bahrain against a team comprised of our supposed arch rivals- Pakistanis. I remember the passion and the fervour with which we would celebrate each wicket of theirs and each boundary we scored. I remember the huddle we would form after we had beaten them and the frustration we went through when we lost a game. That passion was something else, it went way beyond a mere game of cricket but crossed into the realm of playing against a team that we Indians have so often regarded as the enemy-Pakistan. Whether we like it or not, the moment we see a bunch of Pakistani lads walkng by we immediately have a comment to pass about them-and most of those comments are never friendly. When the Indian team beats Pakistan in a game of cricket, it goes beyond just winning a cricket game. When we lose, we feel humiliated and embarassed as if those 11 cricketers who went onto the pitch representing our country had betrayed us. Come what may-a loss to Pakistan in unacceptable in any condition. It won't be wrong to say then that most of us believe in the following statement: "We must beat them or we shall cease to exist."

Which isn't true ofcorse. We continue to exist and will continue to exist irrespective of whether we have beaten Pakistan in a game or not. After every loss, we curse everybody around us for a few hours, use the choicest words for our cricket team and then go back to sleep awaiting the next match. Yet somehow, every loss to our neighbors is treated as a dent in our pride. "woh साले क्रिच्केतेर्स हमारी नाक कटवा के आ रहे हैं...सबको चुल्लू भर पानी में डूब जाना चाहिए", we scream after a loss.

But honestly-do we really hate our neighbors so much? Or is it just another rivalry which has been created in our minds thanks to a partition that took place more than 60 years ago. Were the wounds of that event so deep that six decades on and we still haven't been able to get past it? And will we carry this hatred in our hearts for a nation that actually fought its war of independence with us as one single country?

What I fear most is that this hatred that we carry in our hearts for a nation that embodies a culture just like ours and with whom we have more things in common than with any other country in the world, this hatred for that nation is something that we will pass on to our future generations. For isn't that's how we inherited this hatred in the first place? Listening to our elders recount the partition story, reading about that 1971 war and how all India tried to do was help another nation gain its independence(the nation in question being Bangladesh) and then the final piece of the jigsaw was completed with the Kargil war. That war ensured that we shall forever view Pakistan as the enemy, as a nation that if allowed to exist will become the reason for our destruction and that must be squashed like a bug if we were to sleep peacefully ever again.

Yet, living almost my entire childhood outside India has somehow helped me get past that hatred. How much ever we may have enjoyed beating those Pakistanis in a game of cricket, the truth is more often than not we were on really friendly terms. That's how we actually played matches against each other in the first place. Yes, there was a competitive streak always going on simple because we belonged to two nations who were more often that not at logger heads with each other, but in the end-whatever the result maybe, win or lose, we would always shake their hands and congratulate them on a good game before we fixed the time and venue for our next match.

Interacting with them, it made me realise a very simple thing: Friendships go beyond boundaries. All it takes is understanding. I don't talk to half of the people in my class and it's not because I hate them but simply because we don't have a common understanding about things and are not that comfortable talking. For in friendships, that's all that matters. All you need is a common understanding of things and a common language you can speak in. For after that, everything else, ceases to matter. Cast, creed, religion, sex, nationalities-none of that matters.

And honestly-it's high time we went beyond the 'he is a pakistani so if you interact with him then you are fraternising with the enemy' mould. A man creates his own enemies and his own friends. How much ever we may want to blame the circumstances, the truth is we are the one's who choose our friends. And similarly we are the one's who choose our enemies. If anything my interaction with the Pakistanis has taught me, then it is how similar we actually are. We speak the same language, have nearly the same dressing sense, follow about the same values and have inherited the same culture, yet we are always at each other throats, trying to bring each other down. We take pleasure in their pain and feel a sense of happiness when we see their nation suffering.

All this has to stop at some point. The seed of hatred shouldn't be sown any further than it already has. For if we impart this hatred in the future generation then I am afraid this hatred will engulf us all. It will take us into a darkness from which we might never be able to see light again. More than Pakistan, our hatred for them and ultimately we ourselves would be the reason for our destruction. I really hope I don't get too see that day.

As a parting shot letme recount a past experience of mine. When I was in 11th grade, in my school bus there used to be these two guys whom I didn't necessarily get along with that well. Not that we used to fight or anything, but we just didn't particularly like each other. Then one fine day, these two guys started calling me a 'Pakistani.' No prizes for guessing why. Since I am a Muslim, somehow some people(actually morons and racists) think they have the liberty to brand me as a Pakistani. This went on for a few days until my 'famous' temper finally blew up and I gave them a verbal lashing with all sorts of slangs involved to remember for the rest of their lives. The reason that I lost my temper that day was because I though by calling me a Pakistani they were racially abusing me. If that same incident were to take place now, I would have given them the same verbal lashing with a few more modified slangs that I have managed to learn since then. But not just because they were racially abusing me. But because they were treating a word that describes the people of a nation as an abusive word.

STOP THE HATRED OR WE SHALL CEASE TO EXIST!!!