Borders Abroad

Growing up in Kottayam, a small town down south of India, I was kilometers away from the nearest border post with Pakistan but was never too far from the emotional shelling that happened every morning when news was discussed at the breakfast table and at playgrounds. We celebrated war movies, cried together when we lost a cricket match and silently swore to kill them all when ever a jawan came home from kashmir in a coffin. For me, patriotism went hand in hand with an underlying hatred for Pakistan and Pakistanis. I know hate is a harsh word but I would never have shared a meal with a Pakistani during my growing up years. To me ,Pakistan was in another planet .
Years later, living in another city, I now know that there is a Punjab in Pakistan along with Sindh and Balochistan. Now that I have friends from the other side, I have no qualms about sharing a meal with Most of the time, I mean it when I say "Bhai Jaan". Lahore is now just another city I can look up friends in, if I ever went there. I don't really mind when they call me "Hindi" behind my back because I identify more "Hindi " than being called a "Malabari".
The way I look at things now, there isn't much difference between us and them, if we forget what we assume and what we were told about each other. They like SRK and we like Junoon, they are mad about cricket as we are, and we always cheer for their team unless, of course, they are playing us, don't we ?
Of course, there is that invisible thin line that separates us in all ascpects of life out here ( we seldom watch cricket together, we don't talk about the wars and we never share accommodation). As the saying goes, good fences make good neighbours.

She is 62

"If there is one place on the face of earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India!"

62 is not a unique number in itself . But lo and behold every one . She is 62

She is mother to billions of us . She derived her name from the river Indus on whose banks dwelled the first civilizations. It was in her lap that our kind first learned to count and to play chess . She lets her sons rule themselves . She was the richest country in the world till the white thieves leeched on her for 200 years . Yet she is coming out strong and her new avatar is 62 .

She is Ladies and Gentlemen INDIA .

"What makes a nation, is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past "

We have a glorious past , now come .............lets make a glorious future

Proud to be Indian !
Jai Hind !