Sometime back, I was talking to one of my close friends in the US. The talk was about food, adjusting to the American life, finding friends, etc. This is where we hit upon the topic of Pakistan. Finding friends could be sometimes tricky, and with the tiny Asian population there, my friend said, Indians and Pakistanis lived like people from one nation. 

Now, that was, for a moment, intriguing. I too have seen Pakistanis once. At the Wagah border. I was on the Indian side, with my friends. And there, on the opposite side, were the Pakistani bunch, who, I could clearly make out from the distance, were clearly hell bent on hating us. How else could I interpret their vociferous slogan shouting from their side. We were not giving up easily either. And, here, we Indians overpowered the Pakistanis in the throat-war.

Now, when my friend was talking about befriending Pakistanis, it was intriguing because, I would personally not want to befriend them, since they clearly looked like warmongers.

Okay, this has all been quite sometime back. Now, with over a year on the India-Pakistan Friendship Club, one of Orkut’s biggest and most talked about communities, all the perception has changed. Because now, I have not only met Pakistanis, but also moved much beyond and talked to them on issues, sensitive ones, which even our governments on either side have been hesitating to talk on for a long long while now.  

I cannot answer if I have been able to reach a consensus on the Kashmir issue or any of the other big ones, which have been plaguing the relations between India and Pakistan for over sixty years. But, talking to the Pakistanis has taught me one thing. And that is the impact the ‘fear of the unknown’ can have upon you. It is this fear that made me apprehensive about the bunch of Pakistani boys who were vociferously chanting Pakistani slogans on the Wagah border. It is probably the very same fear about the Indian side, which made them do the throat-war. Or probably, it was we people on this side, who started it the other day. Maybe all of us waving hands to the people on the other side would have made it a great experience of friendship that day. I cannot say.  

But, it probably is true. The Pakistani, my friend befriended, was probably just one amongst those bunch I met at the Wagah border. Isn’t it intriguing that the same person can appear to be of two contrasting personalities when viewed from a distance and when introduced as a friend?  

That is the difference between knowing the person and not knowing him. And that, exactly is the root cause for all the issues that exist between us two nations. While I may sound too simplistic about resolving sensitive issues which now have started to take four dimensions – that of India, Pakistan, Kashmiris and the unwanted dimension of terrorists, this definitely is the beginning; it is very much necessary to befriend a ‘somebody’ from across the border.  

Because, it is this ‘somebody’ who can make you get less apprehensive about the other side of the table. It is this somebody you shall remember when your compatriots accuse the enemy of deaths on your soil.  

When everyone in our countries befriends a person on the other side, there is hope. There is a hope since you are talking issues with after all your ‘brother’. There is a hope for a give and take. And there is also hope that the terrorists give up their profession feeling hopeless.

So, if you are a person, who has all along felt betrayed by the people on the other side, try befriending one from there for a change. As I said before, I do not have an answer for the end of conflicts. But I am perfectly convinced that if at all there exists an end to it, this is definitely the way to begin.  

 
- Anand S