A letter to the Pakistani people

June 14th, 2005

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Reproduced from –
http://www.vichaar.org/2005/06/14/a-letter-to-the-pakistani-people-from-indian-bloggers/

NOTE: This article is missing from it’s original location…
Luckily I had copy so here you go… 🙂 Hoping the author won’t mind as (s)he wasn’t reachable on the ID specified on the above link.

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Dear Pakistani People,

We like Pakistani people. And we dont just mean Adnan Sami, Jal or Strings – we mean regular Pakistani folks. In fact, we like most people and cultures. Heck, we tolerate Laloo and he’s totally out of this world. We can understand your accent much easier than his!

Most people of the world like India too, and love to visit us (unless they are coming to play cricket). After they get over their severe stomach upset, most tourists enjoy our hospitality. Our best cities are a wonderful melting pot of different religions and cultures. Globalization in India has given some of our cities the opportunity to become global melting pots (the heat helps too). You guys should see the number of foreigners patiently standing in line (even when there is none!) applying for drivers licenses in Bangalore and Pune. Some foreigners are even standing in line to become our next Prime Minister. Getting a drivers license is easier.

By The life of brian (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

While we like Pakistani people, we don’t really like the dude who currently fancies himself as your “President”. Given that he was born in India, we feel sort of responsible and guilty in some weird way. If you guys want to send him back we’d probably have to take him (yikes!). Google is hiring in India, and maybe he could work for them. He is something of an expert in searching, we hear.

Anyway, in India, when we get a crappy Prime Minister (happens frequently!), we say “Who the @!#$ elected this moron?”. Friendly, neighbourly suggestion – maybe it’s time you guys started asking yourselves this question too. BTW, one of you cool dudes reading this should tell him that he doesn’t scare us with his see-how-crisp-my-uniform-is routine. Indians are more scared of Mogambo (r.i.p.) than the General in his new clothes.

He (or his “government”) might have told you that even though we might be an “IT superpower”, at heart we are really a rabid bunch of Hindu fanatics out to burn masjids, discriminate against muslim Indians and beat the Pakistan cricket team in every single cricket match. To be fair to the fabled Pakistani PR machine, one of these statements is actually true. But after our recent convincing series win in Pakistan, even that is sort of not true. Witness how we let Pakistan win a game or two in India. Also, we dont really think of ourselves as an “IT superpower” – we would be perfectly happy with “upwardly mobile IT subedaars” right now.

But seriously, only a very few Indians are Hindu fanatics. More people want to watch Nazar in India than want to burn up a mosque (and hardly anyone wants to watch Nazar). And even those who say they are want to burn up a mosque actually just want a decent job (they may or may not know it). Once they get good jobs they mostly end up working hard and watching Bollywood item numbers just like you guys. Except, since Bollywood is not banned in India, they can do so legally. Actually, most people (outside of your government and military) dont give a damn about this Hindu/Muslim stuff. Youngsters these days just want to have, you know, fun.

Partition is no problem for us either – we’re like so over that breakup. Moreover, we’re sort of used to having Pakistan as our neighbor too (whom would we play cricket against if it weren’t for you ?). Besides, it would sort of suck to have Afghanistan next door. BTW, we heard Musharraf broke up with Osama ?! Man those guys go back a long way! Stranger things have happened. Last year, Govinda gave up a perfectly good marriage to run after Rani Mukherjee. Whats next, we wonder ? The Bush vs. Blair showdown ? (yeah right!).

With all due respect, your “journey to democracy” is running more late than the always-late Jammu-Tawi express, which has also started running on time these days!. You guys should get a move on, get a real President and join the democratic block party we’re having next Holi. Veggie Kababs on the house! Okay maybe just a few meaty halaal ones for you guys (veggie food is healthy you know – give the goats a break and all that).

We’ve got some serious cant-mess-with-em folks in our Indian Army (as Musharraf the Party Pooper found out but never admitted). Sometimes when we get angry, we start shouting “KILL THE @#$#$$sss “. But we only say that to each other, and only when we’re playing Unreal. In real life, we don’t really want war. But when Party Pooper’s thugs start occupying our peaks, its sort of like the feeling you get when the “doodhwaala” (milk-man) starts screaming at you in your ritzy apartments for past dues – in full view of the very neighbor you’re trying to date. Sort of embarasses you, and you just want to, you know, get him the heck out of there really quick. You’re not going to stand around getting pushed around by a doodhwaala, are you ? Which is what we did the last time. Surely you understand. You guys have doodhwaalas too, right ?

Sounds good, but what about Jammu and Kashmir, you say. Ah yes. A real party pooper that. Well, here’s the truth. We’ve grown up seeing the “whole” of Jammu and Kashmir as a part of India in our textbooks. But then, so have you. So here’s the plan. Rid yourselves of the party pooper in the army costume and get a real government. Then lets talk over a few beers (okay, kawa or whatever for you guys. Lighten up, its just a figure of speech!). Let the guns stop talking and the kawa start taking effect. Then who knows what we will think of together ? Whats the tearing rush ? The Himalayas aren’t going anywhere. At least lets first stop slapping one another around and running to the U.S. like two silly brats in a school yard. The world is laughing at us, you know.

We hope you kind of get what we’re all about by reading this letter. If you do get it, we’d love to know what you feel. With a billion people, we kind of get confused all the time. It would be nice to get, you know, an outside perspective.

Yours truly,

chanakya at vichaar dot org – Your friendly neighborhood Indian blogger trying to project the views of an unknown number of other Indian bloggers. 🙂

Entry Filed under: India Pakistan Relations, Humor by chanakya