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Aman Ki Asha Page Published in The News
Aman Ki Asha Page Published in The News
Aman Ki Asha Page Published in The News
INTERNATIONAL
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Thursday, November 10, 2011
Ronnie Philip was the first Indian Hassaan Zafar ever spoke to - and vice versa. Here, the two students from Mumbai and Lahore write about their ground-breaking initiative Ummeed-e-Milaap with its joint Diary Campaign and technical qualifier competitions aimed at bringing together the youth of India and Pakistan. Its clearly time both governments heard this voice and introduced exchange programmes for students - a sure way to remove the festering misconceptions
By Ronnie Philip
By Hassaan Zafar
It took me all of 15 seconds to decide that I was all for this peace initiative. I started to telephone Ronnie Philip but cancelled the call. I punched in the number again...It was the first time I ever talked to an Indian
phone Ronnie Philip. Then something struck my mind and I cancelled the call. Should I talk in Urdu? I punched in the number again. Deciding to play cool, I went for English. Conversing very formally we talked about the peace initiative Ronnie had mentioned. He sounded as enthusiastic as I was after reading his email. It was the first time I ever talked to an Indian. I assured him of complete assistance from my side. When the call ended I felt a bit nervous. I should have talked to my team first to ask if they agreed. Was I committing to something I wouldnt be able to do? Would my team give the approval? I decided to make a formal plan about the collaboration with Ronnies help. When I presented it to my team, they loved the idea. Everyone supported it. A series of calls and emails with Ronnie resulted in conceptualising this initiative. I was now conversing with him informally in Urdu, just as I would with any of my friends here. With people from IIT Bombay wishing me Happy Independence on August 14th and Eid Mubarak, all the stereotypes were being proven wrong. The question now was, what should we call the initiative. The name had to be powerful enough to touch peoples hearts. With suggestions from both sides, we finally agreed upon Ummeed-e-Milaap. The initiative had two parts: the qualifier event for Techfest 2012 for which we invited teams from all over Pakistan to participate in a robotics competition, and a Peace Diary which had to travel across MumbaiLahore-Karachi inviting the youth to comment and give their messages to the brethren across the border. Since our semester was to start late in September all we could do then was to talk about the details and finalise them. With a very short time for execution we got the LUMS administrations approval on this. I was a bit worried as that was a potential hurdle, but as they say, where theres a will theres a way. Our administration applauded the initiative and despite the time constraints, they helped us firm things up. Ummeed-e-Milaap, which was initially just found in my inbox I saw it happening. We announced our event and got an overwhelming response. Around 25 teams registered for the event with just one weeks notice. While decorating the venue, we decided to put up Indian and Pakistani flags together as the theme. Since participants were from different cities of Pakistan, I wasnt sure what their response would be at seeing Indian flags around. Nervously we received the participants and to our surprise found them very much at ease with it. In fact, they appreciated our team for this wonderful initiative. A team from about some Pakistani students going to India. It was all about such gestures of peace from the participants, expressed also in our mission statement: There is no way to Peace Peace is the way. I would like to thank all those who helped make Ummeed-e-Milaap a success. Aneeq Zia (President SPADES) and Farrukh Feroze (Executive Officer SPADES) worked tirelessly for the execution of the event. The LUMS administration gave its complete support to make it a success and of course, the invaluable help of Ronnie Philip and Anish Sankhe from across the border. My experience with this initiative not only cleared my misconceptions about the youth across the border but also about the youth in my own country. What the common man wants is peace and prosperity. Taking this vision further, we at SPADES plan to continue this interaction and are planning to invite Indian students to participate in our annual Science Olympiad, Psifi12. I believe that the youth c a n change a lot of things. As a student I w o u l d humbly request both governments to introduce academic and cultural exchange programmes for students so that the coming generations can remove misconceptions that have festered for the past 65 years. The writer is General Secretary SPADES (Society for the Promotion and development of Engineering and Sciences). Email hr.psifi11@gmail.com
azar mein rehtey pull it off. After putting in place ho... The catchy tune some strong groundwork beand lyrics of the Aman hind us, we passed the first hurki Asha anthem on television dle: convincing our institutes caught my attention as I lounged authorities. This was followed by my on my sofa this February. The song highlighted the striking first interaction with Pakistanis. similarity between the people of I was introduced via email to India and Pakistan and inspired people like Dr. Pervez Hoodbme to stand and be counted in hoy, Beena Sarwar, Dr. A. H. the quest to bring together the Nayyar. I was really happy to people of India and Pakistan. see their enthusiasm as they We, the young citizens of the pledged to help make our initiacountry, should be the torch- tive a success. Soon, I received a call from bearers of this effort. Within a month, I was pro- Hassaan Zafar, a student at Lahore University of vided a unique opportunity to Management Scimake this dream into ences (LUMS) in a reality when I was i Pakistan. This was made manager of Mumba my first conversation our institutes sciwith a Pakistani. We were both ence festival, Techfest. Each one of the 21 man- excited at the opportunity to agers are given the opportunity talk to each other and were inito state their vision and what tially at our formal best, trying they aim to achieve in their to be as polite as possible. The short tenure of nine months. My ten-minute conversation ended vision was: To unite the stu- without any tangible conclusions, but our message was subdents of India and Pakistan. Well, life throws you sur- stantiated. I just felt at complete prises. One of my co-man- ease with Hassaan, never for a agers, Anish Sankhe, had the moment felt that he was differsame vision. It was our delight ent in any way. We talked several times to see the whole team rallying behind this initiative and pledg- after that to conceptualise the ing support to achieve our initiative. The response from dream. But how were we going Hassaan and his friends made to put our thoughts into ac- it clear that even they were tion? We felt clueless, there looking for such an opportuwere uneasy realisations about the complications: Post 26/11 (the attacks on Mumbai), are the citizens allowed to cross the border? How would we get in touch with any Pakistani? What would their response be? Would my calls be monitored by nity, wanting to play a role in police authorities? Looking back, I find these driving home the message of peace to the youth. Things apprehensions laughable. After a few brainstorming started looking up. The Aman sessions with my mentor Jatin ki Asha IT Committee helped Desai (a journalist, and the us to connect with student most optimistic and helpful per- heads of AIESEC Karachi and son I have ever met), we started FAST Karachi, with whom we to feel that we might be able to enthusiastically partnered in
n eye for an eye makes the whole world blind Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. My father taught me the meaning of this quote when I was in the seventh grade. I used to wonder why the world seems so ignorant of these words so simple and yet so meaningful. For years I thought of the
Lahore
Students for peace: A robot with an Indian flag at a technical competition for Ummeed-e-Milaap at LUMS Lahore; (Left) students at a Diary Campaign inauguration at IIT Bombay; (Right) students at an event in Mumbai. If everyone starts interacting on a personal level, they will start to realise that the brothers and sisters across the border are just like their own. This realisation needs to dawn upon each one of us. Together, our might will easily overpower the forces that try to separate us on the basis of borders, region and religion. Our common appeal to the youth of both nations is: explore and find out for yourself what people across the border are like, rather than having biased opinions about them from the extremists. Join the youth wagon to bring a change, a change to lay the foundations of a peaceful tomorrow. Ummeed-e-Milaap: There is no way to peace, peace is the Way. The writer, a student at IIT Mumbai and a manager of TechFest 2012, is one of the driving forces behind Ummeed-e-Milaap http://www.techfest.org/hom e/ummeed_e_milaap | Email: ronnie@techfest.org people living across the border as enemies. As a child when I watched Bollywood movies, which like every Pakistani I am a big fan of, I used to ask myself, how can someone who looks just like me and talks like me be an enemy? I remember that June day this year so clearly. After returning from my internship, I checked my email. My inbox contained an email from a guy named Ronnie Philip. It had travelled to me via Dr A.H. Nayyar (a faculty member at LUMS SSE) and Beena Sarwar of Aman ki Asha. The email talked about a student level peace initiative between IITBombay Techfest and students at LUMS; it invited SPADES (Society for the Promotion and Development of Engineering and Sciences, a student run organisation that I am a part of) to collaborate in this regards. I am usually not quick to make decisions but it took me all of 15 seconds to decide that I was all for it. Without contacting my team, I started to tele-
GIKI even insisted on running their robot with the Indian flag on it to send a message of friendship across the border. Thus came upon me a moment of realisation that the youth which makes up the majority of the population of both countries wants peace. I felt the essence of Ummeed-e-Milaap. It wasnt about arranging a robotics competition, nor was it
he jeep groaned past the Bazar and onto the Convent on the outskirts of Simla, where my cousins Farida and Asma were waiting clutching handbags with a few nuns. The officer got out of the jeep, met the nuns and escorted my cousins to the jeep. Somewhere past the Ridge we were transferred to big black car. In the evening we found that the ferry at Ghaggar had closed and we had to find a place to stay overnight. The officer rang a bell at a small house in an Army compound at some distance from the ferry crossing and asked the lady who opened the door to keep the children for the night. She was a kind Hindu lady and let us in and gave food. Her husband an Army officer came in late but we were fast asleep by then. I was given the sofa in the drawing room whilst my cousins presumably had another place to sleep. Early the following morning, I awoke to see a huge Alsatian dog sitting on his haunches, head cocked and looking at me lying on the sofa. It was not aggressive but had a loving look. I stretched out and got close to it and hugged it. It stayed close to me during breakfast and went with me to the car where the officer was waiting. With a big thank you to our hosts we restarted our journey, crossed the Ghaggar. After a few hours we reached the residence of the Deputy Commissioner, Ambala and were lodged in the guest room. Years later I came to know that the Deputy Commissioner was Mr Grewal Singh, an Indian Civil Service officer, a friend and colleague of my Uncle Khalid, the father of my cousins travelling with me. Mr Grewal met us the following morning and said that we would be living with him till evacuation was possible. I had a vague notion then of what was in store for
Urdu were forgotten. So the young boy from the plains of the Punjab had returned home but I was anxious to get to Mackeson Road and the tennis court there and my bicycle. It was winter and cold and a few days of food of my choice and freedom changed me. In January 1948, I was admitted to the Convent and upon my parents transfer to Lahore, to St. Anthonys and later Aitchison College. Life at School in Simla had set me on a path to which I have no regrets. Boarding life in particular taught me self-reliance, sharing with dormitory mates, competitiveness, good manners and a host of other matters which steadied life ahead. As the years rolled on, gone is the journey to School, the end of the Persian Water wheel in the village and the ride on the drivers seat going round and round the well, the gas lamps, the spelling competition with cousins. Sita Ram is no more and forgotten are the deodar trees of the greater Himalayas around Simla, the trek to Kufri where the flowers were taller than us young boys, Wild Flower Hall, Barnes Court, the Ridge, Flat One in the School. Gone are Cotton, Sinker, Barnes and Emerson Houses and the Prep School (now a Tibetan Centre), and so are Kathala Railway Station and the beautiful Kidar Nath Farm. I got my tin box back and collected it from the Indian High Commission office at that time located on the Mall next to the Canal in Lahore. It was empty and I felt that it was of no use to remember the material part of life. I was glad to be home with my parents and sister and brothers. Only now can I feel what parents had to go through as there was little assurance that we would return; life could have taken a different path. And onto matriculation, O/A levels, graduation, service with a multinational with a multicultural work force with gems from across the border, working with different ideas and values but easy for me to un-
derstand, having been in boarding with boys from all over India. I had known some of their thinking and got along with them... Amongst my seniors, Zafar Hassan from Amritsar and Lahore, Zia Shafi Khan from , and Nizam Shah Shahjahanpur in the UP from Srinagar were outstanding. There are lifelong friendships forged with Ejaz, Naveed, Anwar. Service in Aitchison College followed and more attention given in the twilight of my life to a loving family across the globe in a different setting. I married Asma; our sons Jaffar and Usman studied for their degrees in the US and are now in Calgary and Karachi respectively with their families. Grandchildren Hassan, Haider and Sonia are growing up to be good human beings. The village prospers and the descendants of Malik Maula Baksh keep his name flying high. He lies buried there with his sons Abdur Rahman, Abdul Mannan and Abdullah Khalid with place in the graveyard for more to follow. Doctor Sahib, Chief Sahib and Commissioner Sahib are remembered to this day. But there are no slogans or eventful days and the dream that was Pakistan sadly disappointed many. Only a brief period in the 1965 skirmish, as Gujrat borders the Jammu area, did the residents show the determination to succeed from the soil that made them. On a clear day one can see the Pir Panjal range in the Himalayas, beautiful and serene and standing tall and mighty unchanged as time goes by. I will always remain thankful to Mr Grewal Singh. In the 60s, his brother Mr Kewal Singh was appointed as the High Commissioner of India to Pakistan. Aunt Salihas father, who was also Asmas grandfather, and I called on him. Mr Singh was deeply touched by the gesture of a distinguished person around 90 years old who had made the effort. But such men and such values are few.
The writer served in a multinational as the Head of Human Resources, and later as Vice Principal and Bursar of Aitchison College, Lahore. Email: iftikharahmadmalik@hotmail.com A peace initiative whose time has come...
Destination Peace: A commitment by the Jang Group, Geo and The Times of India Group to create an enabling environment that brings the people of Pakistan and India closer together, contributing to genuine and durable peace with honour between our countries.