Continued from Part 3
Our man from Delhi continues from where he left off - wondering where the women are, sharing weird jokes with Chacha Green Cricket and--apart from somehow trying to insinuate something very surreptitious and secret--concluding that "even our Chinese
Continued from Part 3
"The Emergency", 1975 through 1977 in India, was a period in our multi-hued history which I sawup-close. I also saw the end of the Vietnam war, live episodes of conflicts in Mozambique, Angola, Papua NewGuinea and the evolution of East Timor. Of course, we also sailed to the economically stronger parts of theworld, Western Europe, North America, Persian Gulf, Far East, even South Africa. For some time I tried tostudy in Ireland. In Poland, during a strike in the docks, we sat with Lech Walesa. USSR was beginning to lookshaky. South America was about discovering women. Africa was about discovering wars.
These were my formative years, after a childhood spent listening to martial lore, where the enemy wasrespected for bravery. Late teens through early 20s was when we who were lucky to sail saw the good and thebad that went with it. There was no internet, so exchanging notes on evolution of the human mind wasrestricted to those you sailed with or met, and learning was largely through books. I was lucky, I crossed thePacific regularly before the term "Pacific Rim countries" was invented. And so I also met a lot ofAmerican people, in addition to those from the rest of the world. And I learnt why the size of maritimecontainers was linked to the size of the 24-can Coca-Cola crate, shipped by the box-load to Vietnam.
I met black and white and Latino and Red Americans and rednecks and soldiers and draft evaders and hippies andjunkies and whores and truck drivers and pimps and night-life and discovered that they were also human,understood what a miserable life war was, smoked gifts from India, drank cheap plonk in brown paper bags,learnt philosophy on the real meaning of life. I also saw the evolution of the hard working family ethos withthe "average" North American that went towards well known icons like huge big cars and massivebuildings with deep lawns on wide roads and immense meal servings but also lesser known qualities likesupporting sustainable education, bringing up the next generation through time spent on evolving youngstersthrough neighbourhood little league base-ball clubs and similar, community service through volunteer firefighters or draw-bridge maintenance.
And I also understood how validation of truth as well as history were even then the prerogatives of those withfatter wallets. And how these fatter wallets came through a combination of agriculture and aggressive defenceand humanities and economics and religion and property and showmanship and commerce and . . . power overcommunication. Individual or nation or religion or all points in between.
That's when I figured, hey, this is America, a continent with soil as fertile as mine, so how come I amcarrying shiploads of grain back to the starving millions while they seem to be getting there? One hell of away to evolve an open mind, I tell you.
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Downside: All we got to eat in Lahore was chips, wafers, in plastic sacks. Finally, I spent the postmidnight through dawn hours being driven in a snazzy and comfortable bus, on a superb motorway, dozing througha Sunny Deol-Preity Zinta movie. All this over land that my forefathers probably tilled. Or at least, walkedor rode across. Or fought with invaders. Or ran from them. Or capitulated. Whatever.
For some reason, I feel like I have been stranded in and around Lajpat Nagar, Delhi, circa 1975, for thenight, except when I got on the bus. Once I was on the bus I felt like I was on the Delhi-Ludhianaair-con super-deluxe. Except that...
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That's OK, I am not here to check on morals. I am sure people will recall a day and age when even grade-AEuropean airlines, some now sadly defunct, alas, would come in and disembark seats for "repairs",stuffed with gold biscuits.
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0930-1400, 16th April 2004
... except that, well: Where are the women in this country? Makes me wonder at the logic the fleshtraders gave me at Attari when I asked them what the drive, if not monetary, was: Young Muslim girls wouldotherwise get sold to Hindu husbands, they said, when they tried to explain to me that they were doing it forthe good of the girls and for The Faith. I have been given the same reasoning whenever I've asked thisquestion in other Muslim countries too. Another version of the hard luck stories dished out by women of thetrade who tell customers what they want to hear so that the size of their tip increases. It goes with what weas shippies learnt very early in life - anybody who wants anything from you will always tell you what a great(big) Dick you are (have).
We saw a few women on the train. As we disembarked, they moved off; escorted. After that, agreed, it ismidnight in Lahore, but there are none on the streets. None at the bus station. None in the bus. Early in themorning, none at Skyways/Pindi. None at the hotel. None seen along the way or walking with the crowds. Andnow, in the fairly upscale 2000-rupee Javed Miandad stands, right next to the balcony leading to the Pakistaniteam dressing room, barring a few obvious Indian women in Indian colours, none. What is the male-female ratioin this country, anyway?
I am not going to get a straight answer to this question during my stay in Pakistan.
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The conversation overtakes the match and moves on to equting the fight for Kashmir as a revenge for EastPakistan. It goes on. I feel like I am at The Chowk.Much of the next few hours are spent in reaching a point in every discussion which inevitably veers towardsKashmir, then changes track to watching the match, joining in shouting all sorts of slogans, and exchanging 10rupee notes. We are the first Hindus any one of them has ever met. None of them recognise the "Om"symbol across my t-shirt.
I wish I had a ponytail and wore caste marks.
Want a smoke? Walk up to any policeman. Want to walk into the restricted enclosures? Walk up with a seniorpoliceman. Want to avoid paying for a ticket? Walk in as escort to families of very senior policeman. I learnthat they are called "thullaa" and "mamu" here too. Some bored young boys try to enact thescene from Dil Se, where Shah Rukh Khan's radio jockey hero is being dragged away in the backlanes ofOld Delhi by the bad Muslim terrorists, and poor SRK desperately tries to attract the attention of some copson a goof off by shouting the magic words "oye thullai, thullai" at them. This has the localconstabulary down on them very rapidly, but considering the mixed nature of the crowd and myrequest-cum-apology on their behalf, they are not thrown out but let off without much fanfare.
I see a few familiar faces from the Indian cricket establishment, their hanger-ons and media strutting around.They all look very important with bunches of badges hanging around their necks. As a matter of fact, I see alot of important looking faces and over-weight bodies from both countries strutting around trying to look VeryImportant.