India, Pakistan, Make Love, Not War

[desiman]

Message of Love to Pakistan from Indian Schoolchildren

AMRITSAR, Punjab, India: Indian schoolchildren writing on what is being called the world's largest love letter by Friends Without Borders at Jalianwala Bagh in Amritsar March 19. Teams of Friends Without Borders have traveled throughout India collecting signatures and messages on the letter. On March 20, they set out to Lahore in Pakistan carrying the letter. (AFP Photo, India West March 24, 2006)

Pakistani children reply with their own love letter (April 5, 2006)

*From Pakistan with love, Live Pakistan.com, April 05, 2006 (Received via Sanjay Tulankar
sanjaytulankar@yahoo.com)

“It seems that the only logical conclusion for peace is to look for it in children, the message is so simple that it just might ring true,” said Maria Durana, a partner with ‘friends without borders’, the leading organisation behind the “World’s largest love letter.”

The letter, which has travelled throughout India, collecting the sentiments and hopes of Indian children from various schools, districts and even remote villages has finally reached its recipients in Pakistan, and the gesture is now being returned with equal enthusiasm.

Hundreds of children from schools all over Lahore have signed the ‘golden strip’ in the letter, which is now being referred to as ‘the golden bridge for peace’. The 86,400 square foot letter (360 feet by 249 feet) was first unveiled in Bangalore on January 16 and has since travelled throughout India, growing in both size and sentiment.

Individual pieces of the letter were separated into banners and marched down the streets of Ahmedabad by children from different faiths including children from mosques, synagogues, churches and temples throughout the city.

The letter-head message reads, “Dear children of Pakistan, let’s join our hearts in friendship. Together we can make a better world.”

Students from Lahore Grammar School, the Convent of Jesus and Mary, Aitchison College for Boys, Beaconhouse and SOS village were among the hundreds of children who gathered at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore today to sign the golden strip, which would be returned to India.

Children painted posters and chanted slogans of peace for hours, also joining in a song composed for the occasion, linking both countries in a united quest for friendship. “We hope for a lasting friendship with our Indian brothers and sisters and we hope that this letter would help us make friends,” said Ali Raza from SOS village.

“I think this is the best gift from India and hope that we can get more and more signatures and letters to show how much love we have for our Indian brothers and sisters,” said Aaliya Durrani, a student from Lahore Grammar School.

“This letter shows how much love there can be between the two countries if we could only learn to choose friendship over enmity and peace over war. We should tell people in India that we are willing to do so,” said Nosheen Sadiq, another Grammar School student.

Messages such as, “East or west, cant we both be the best?” by Priya from Chandigarh and, “To my brothers and sisters in Pakistan - all we need is ‘real’ friendship, if it is ‘real’ it will last through anything” by K Sathya Murti from St Joseph’s Indian Middle School in Bangalore showed honest emotions are all it really takes to break boundaries.

“The aim of this exercise is to promote person-to-person contact through schools and Friends Without Borders. We have received 11,000 letters from Indian children so far and hope Pakistani children will reciprocate their gesture,” said Maria Durana.

“It is impossible to not be moved by this unprecedented gesture of peace, which is proving to be more powerful than most others in the past,” said Saad Anwar, a visitor. “The millions of scribbled and scrawled emotions that this letter carries leads one to believe that the apathy that exists between both countries may actually be resolved and that children may be ‘just’ the ones to do it.”

“We aim to take the golden strip of the letter back to India as the response from Pakistan, and the rest of the letter which is made from canvas and is durable, will be sent as tent material to the October 8 earthquake victims. The 196 pieces of the border to the letter will be sent to different schools in Pakistan as souvenirs to encourage contact between students of both countries,” said Raza Shahid, a volunteer.

The letter, which may be listed as the largest card in the Guinness Book of World Records, has fast assumed the proportions of a massive campaign. With a documentary film by award winning filmmaker Gopi Desai underway, a book-deal with Mapin Publishing and an army of volunteers, the organization launch a movement for peace among children of both countries.

 

[desiman]

Do's

There are many other gestures you can make for reducing tension between the two countries /communities.

* The first effort should be to see within yourself whether you have any innate bias/hatred for the people of the other country/ community, and try to reduce it by asking yourself why do you have such tendencies?
* Have discussions and debates between friends and family members on issues of communalism and faith, and instead of letting people shrug off these issues with inborn biases, try to change their minds towards fair judgements about everything including history, religion etc.
* Make greeting cards, desktop themes and posters etc. containing messages of peace, friendship and disarmament etc. and send them to friends and people from your neighbouring country with messages of love.
* We (at this website) would also welcome such materials as greeting cards, posters and other graphics that carry messages of peace. All the messages and materials recieved will be put up on this website along with your name for free use by visitors.

 

[desiman]

Don'ts

While you are in cyberspace (or in the real world) please take a vow that you will not take part in the following activities :

* Creating or running webites that carry material that could hurt any individual, community or religious group.
* Posting hateful messages against persons of a particular community or nationality in message-boards, chat-rooms or other interactive platforms.
* Sending chain-letters or e-mails that instigate/hurt the feelings of a particular community.
* Unnecessarily boasting or flaunting the nationalism/patriotism for your country at the cost of hurting someone else.
* Asking/challanging someone to prove his/her patriotism for the country by making any kind of demands, or blackmailing.
* Suppressing someone's right to know or the right to express on the internet (or otherwise), such as blocking someone's access to a particular website, or blocking / tapping someone's e-mails.
* Any other activity based on religious/political bias that could lead to an unpleasant/uncomfortable situation for someone.

 

[desiman]

Friends Without Borders - From India to Pakistan with Love

 

[desiman]

Indian, Pakistani writers love 'their own English'
Baran Farooqi, Feb 11, 2010

Salman Rushdie created the subcontinent's own English
Pakistan's English novelist Kamila Shamsie mentions disparaging remarks made by well-meaning people in her circle when she voiced her ambition to be a writer of fiction — predicting there was disappointment in store for her. Shamsie herself knew no one else who wanted to be a novelist writing in English. The scene was quiet, if not bleak.

Interestingly, Shamsie links the growth of Pakistani fiction to the strong presence of Indian English fiction that shot into the global limelight in the Eighties. In what she calls the 'Midnight's Children's moment' for Pakistan was tangibly experienced only in 1997 when Oxford University Press published an anthology of Pakistani English writing titled A Dragonfly. Verily, it needed the thriving Indian English scene to make it happen.

Earlier, novels by Bapsi Sidhwa and Zulfikar Ghose had received favourable notice but they barely managed a big 'world space' for Pakistani writing until India's literary scene had suitably arrived. The fate of the English novel in Pakistan is intertwined with that in India. Ahmad Ali's Twilight in Delhi was written in English probably to give the alternative version of the Raj's influence on Delhi's culture and declining Mughal empire.

Indian English writers may have found themselves on a defensive wicket since they chose to write in the language of those the country had driven out. This was a predicament shared between writers on both sides. It was only after a new avatar of English emerged, 'the Rushdie effect' so to speak, that they became less self-conscious. They raised issues of the role their English would play in the global community.

To that end, the language was cracked to create 'an English of their own'. On its either side, the actual border between India and Pakistan ceased to matter. The English novel became a tool to investigate and satirize the notion of the nation, its identity and politics of identity.

A look at some of the big names of the Indian novel such as Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh or Upamanyu Chatterjee reveals that they perceive the India-Pakistan rivalry chapter undesirable and have used most of their energies to express anguish or pathos about Partition. The Shadow Lines (1989) is about the only time Amitav Ghosh deals with Partition per se, while Anita Desai last talked about the subject in Clear Light of Day two decades ago.

Though India has been the recipient of the Man Booker Prize thrice in the last 15 years, the most recent being Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger, preceded by Kiran Desai (The Inheritance of Loss) and Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things), none of the novels engage with the politics of the 'outside enemy'. Best-sellers like Q&A by Vikas Swarup and Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat have been made into hugely successful films. They could hardly be bothered about the LoC or the impending — read imagined — threat that the two countries perceive of each other. Almost every novel would easily be relevant to the average English-knowing Pakistani reader.

The contemporary Pakistani novels contain nuanced descriptions of loss, longing and involve complexities of content and narration. Uzma Aslam Khan in Geometry of God examines the debate between religious extremism and scientific thought while Kamila Shamsie, in Burnt Shadows (2009), talks of a 21-year-old Japanese girl who eventually gets located in the 9/11 era. It seems that in the world of English fiction, it is India and Pakistan who are talking right now, and the world is listening.

The writer teaches English Literature at Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi

Indian, Pakistani writers love 'their own English' - Specials - Home - The Times of India

Very Interesting Read

 

[Creder]

Good call bro

But you know something these same children 20 years from now are gonna be at eachother's throats....Its the the ugly reality that we have to face because we are unable to solve our differences

 

[desiman]

Good call bro

But you know something these same children 20 years from now are gonna be at eachother's throats....Its the the ugly reality that we have to face because we are unable to solve our differences

I don’t think so bro, the newer generation sees things differently. They belong to a more global world where Hate for each other doesn’t not last long. For example in Canada Indian and Pakistani live together, call each other best friends and take part in each others festivities. Inshallah one day we shall have peace in the sub-continent and we shall be living together like brothers.

 

[desiman]

With love, from India to Pakistan



Imagine. A gigantic letter -- 240 by 360 feet, to be exact -- signed by thousands of Indian schoolchildren, to their friends across the border in Pakistan. With the message of love, peace and brotherhood.

Imagine a Guinness Book of World Record entry for the largest letter, from India to Pakistan.

No need to imagine, actually. Because on January 16, in Bangalore's Chinnaswamy Stadium, that's exactly what is going to be unveiled.

Designed by artist John Devaraj -– students of whose Born Free Art School are putting the letter together at the St Joseph School ground's tennis court -– the project is the brainchild of two Americans.

And those two Americans -- John Silliphant and Mark Peters -- came to India with friends, initially just for a year.

"We came with no real plans," says Silliphant, 35, who used to design web sites, and was "mostly into volunteer work" in the US. "We came to look for something to do, because every moment there is an opportunity to be of service. We just wanted to look around for those opportunities."

After working in Ahmedabad with slum children and on environmental issues, the time came for the philanthropist friends to leave India to renew their visas.

"We thought it would be a wonderful thing to do -– to carry letters from schoolchildren in India to their friends in Pakistan," says Silliphant, whose partner in charity Peters runs a small software business and a transport firm in America.

But when in just two days they collected 3,000 letters, the scale of things changed. "The kids just lit up at the prospect of the assignment."

No thoughts of rivalry and enmity in the fledgling minds? "Not at all," says Silliphant.

"Those mindsets, you sort of grow into them. You adopt them. Kids just want to be friends. They know kids in Pakistan are just like them -– they just want to play cricket, be friends. That's what's amazing about it."

"Every child we come into contact with, without exception, they all love it. They all have the same innocence and hope and positivity."

"If you can just connect to that purity and make those connections. Then a whole generation grows up and takes over -– that has those connections."

To connect with that purity, Silliphant, Peters and friends travelled to Delhi, Chandigarh, Ajmer, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Pondicherry.

In most places, friends and connections helped their cause. In Chandigarh, for instance, the organisation Yuvsatta set up their appointments with the little ambassadors of peace.

"In three days, we went to 20 schools and met 20,000 students -– all on bicycles!"

In the capital, Silliphant, Peters and friends, who call themselves Friends Without Borders, had no such help. They physically "went to the school gates, asked to see the principal."

But Silliphant is quick to add that be it parents, teachers or school authorities, everyone helped their cause, everyone encouraged what they were trying to do.

The Friends Without Borders campaign marched on from city to city -- battling only a bad bout of jaundice that struck Silliphant -- "empowering the children to be the change."

"It really is going to change the world because you have such an extraordinary outpouring of goodwill. I don't think the world has seen anything like it."

With a documentary by Mumbai-based filmmaker Gopa Desai on the anvil and a bigger Mumbai event -– "with some Bollywood celebrities and even more children" -- planned a week after the Bangalore unveiling, the outpouring of goodwill continues.

Friends Without Borders describe themselves as '99 per cent children and some grown-ups who are working to let the children's voices be heard'.

Are the powers that be in New Delhi and Islamabad listening?

With love, from India to Pakistan

 

[desiman]

Mere Dushman Mere Bhai

 

[Imran Khan]

nice try hope we never see in this thread 15 trolling pages then the end we alll agree and love each other.post here positive or ignore it.any ways it is best time to make these things again for come cold the relation which harm by some bugs in bombay.any ways all of my indian friends agree with me we all are not same in pakistan .some ppl hate you some 2% some love you 8% and some has totaly no feeling they are busy in there own problims90%.wish you good luck bro.

 

[Kinshuk]

Very Very nice thread..

I remember a few line I would like to share.


hum apne apne kheton mein gehon ki jagah chawal ki jagah ye bandooke kyun bote hai,

Zab dono ki hee galiyon mein kuch bhooke bachhe sote hain.

 

[desiman]

nice try hope we never see in this thread 15 trolling pages then the end we alll agree and love each other.post here positive or ignore it.any ways it is best time to make these things again for come cold the relation which harm by some bugs in bombay.any ways all of my indian friends agree with me we all are not same in pakistan .some ppl hate you some 2% some love you 8% and some has totaly no feeling they are busy in there own problims90%.wish you good luck bro.

Thank you Imran Bhai for your kind words, really appreciate it.

 

[desiman]

Very Very nice thread..

I remember a few line I would like to share.


hum apne apne kheton mein gehon ki jagah chawal ki jagah ye bandooke kyun bote hai,

Zab dono ki hee galiyon mein kuch bhooke bachhe sote hain.

Yes those lines are amazing, gives you a lot to think about doesnt it ?

 

[Kinshuk]

Yes those lines are amazing, gives you a lot to think about doesnt it ?

It couldn't have been any better. It speaks out the reality, actually the whole song makes me think a lot. One more line, Kab tak fulkare iss sarhad pe nafrat ka ye ajgar, and I actually wonder, how beautiful it would be, if everything is smooth between the two countries.

 

[desiman]

It couldn't have been any better. It speaks out the reality, actually the whole song makes me think a lot. One more line, Kab tak fulkare iss sarhad pe nafrat ka ye ajgar, and I actually wonder, how beautiful it would be, if everything is smooth between the two countries.

For sure one wonders what the world would be like if India and Pakistan had peace between each other. Just the trade potential is enormous.