I had come to PDF with a lot of baggage and a completely negative view of Pakistan - being from Mumbai - Dawood, the IC 814 hijacking, numerous blasts in Mumbai, Kargil, the Parliament attack, Drug smuggling and finally the Mumbai attack which completely turned my negative view to one of hatred.
But being here for over a year, this negativity has turned to a sort of pity. I see common Pakistani's suffering more than us by way of the world's opinion towards them, terrorism, sectarianism, violence, their leaders apathy towards the populace, the economy, power shortages, Radicalization, corruption, foolish leadership - the list goes on.
It seems to me as if Pakistan is completely in a downward spiral. I find most Pakistani's quite naive, innocent, highly impressionable and emotional. The problems and lack of available solutions sets in a sort of confusion of not knowing what to do and what to expect. I find some of you folks have resigned yourself to destiny and some still fighting and hoping for a better future. Some are quite practical and know the solutions.
I find most Pakistani's pinning their hopes on one man and pining for that one man who will magically pull them out of their troubles, I too am waiting eagerly to see what IK does and brings to Pakistan if he comes to power based on the hopes that most of yo folks have from him.
The last one year I have seen the situation in Pakistan go from bad to worse, it's as if practically watching a nation go down, the society and their sense of security slowly getting eroded - I think Pakistan has hit rock bottom and most probably the only way is up. This is an outside view though and I still hear people say its not like that at all on the ground.
But such turmoils for a country in my one year period here - the attacks on their bases, attacks on their soldiers, the OBL incident, the killing of Shia's, the attack and exodus of minorities, the fallout of relationship with the US, the hatred from Afghanistan is too much to bear if India was in your place and if such incidents and change of events happened to Indians. But Pakistanis are resilient and have been facing up to it which I find exemplary.
I have seen the slide and hope to see the claw back in the next one year - and hope and wish that the slide is not permanent and unrecoverable. I hope the bad times bring saner minds to contemplate and not commit the same mistakes again.
All in all my stay on PDF has been quite eventful.