The friendship farce

Yes, I admit that we are no less in fomenting trouble in our neighbourhood. But that does not exonerate Pakistan8217;s ISI. The Indian Army8217;s worst enemy is not the Kashmiri militant but the Afghan mercenary pumped in by the ISI.

In General Sundarji8217;s The BlindMen of Hindoostan, the Pakistani army sanctions leave to its soldiers but actually sends them to Kashmir, with the caveat that their families will not get any benefits if they are caught by the Indian Army. It may seem far-fetched, but not to some of our officers. They ask: 8220;Don8217;t you see this sudden spurt in cultural exchanges? Delegations from Pakistan roam around the countryside for months.8221; Art knows no barriers, but its celebration should not be at the cost of national security.

Then that unimaginable thing happened in Kerala, God8217;s own country; where Muslims revere Hindu gods and some temples virtually survive on Muslim offerings; where a devotee to Sabarimala, the abode of the Hindu bachelor god Ayyappan, has to bow before his Muslim deputy, Vavar one school of thought relates him to Babur, before climbing the hill to pay obeisance to him.

I grew up amidst Muslim friends and never wondered why our gods were different or why we ate different. I am indebted to the Muslim boy who moulded myworld-view. When I carried my son, the whole locality fed me with delicacies, and I am glad that so many cultural ingredients enriched my son8217;s blood. When my father lay on his deathbed, I did not know who brought the oxygen cylinder and who ran to get the doctor. All I knew was that the house was packed with his friends and none bothered which way another wore his dhoti In Kerala, Muslims wear their dhotis tied on the left; Hindus, on the right.

In my sleepy town of Ponani, the only place unaffected during the Mopla riots, which suffered no tremor when the Masjid domes fell, there are Tamil and Gujarati Brahmins, Christians, Hindus and Muslims. Not an Onam went without my father8217;s Muslim friends tasting the avial and payasam, nor did a Ramzan slip by without him relishing their pathiri and kozhiharu. Our superstars are Mohanlal, a Hindu, and Mammootty, a Muslim. In a hilarious court case, RSS activists were bailed out by their Muslim friends. And the case related toinciting communal trouble!

So when the bomb ripped apart the railway bogeys at Thrissur, I was deeply disturbed. I wondered if there was a tremor in the age-old ties which formed the foundation of the state. But I do not believe in the theory of the earth being shaken by the fall of big trees, and Kerala8217;s populace is too sensible to let their land be shaken by bonsai phenomena. I see in the tattered train the desperate need of a few to live in a fool8217;s paradise. I see the puppets gone haywire with the strings from across the fence hastening the act.

Soon after the blast, I had to cover a concert by Pakistani singer Parveiz Mehdi. Never had I felt so hollow. I cannot take this singing and dancing when the ground reality is that you are capering with the enemy. These aloo-puri sessions will not help. The highbrows and the goatees should heed Chou En-Lai8217;s dictum that all diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means.