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Its like looking into a

mirror for the first time
Wednesday, May 29, 2014

The handshake
akistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs arrival in Delhi on
Monday to attend Narendra Modi's swearing-in as India's
new Prime Minister is seen as a big step towards revitalising
ties. "I am carrying a message of peace. Dialogue is the only
solution," Sharif told reporters before leaving Lahore.
Accompanying Mr Sharif was his wife Kulsoom Nawaz and son
Hussain, besides Pakistani officials. This was the first time that a
leader from either country attended his counterpart's inauguration
since Independence in 1947.

ndian writer and artist Saaz

Aggarwal was recently in
Karachi to attend a seminar on
Sindh Through The Centuries
organized by Sindh Madrasa tul
Islam University (SMIU). A biographer, humour columnist
and book critic, this was her
second visit to Karachi during
the last year and a half. Last
year at the Karachi Literature
Festival, Oxford University
Press launched her book,
Sindh: Stories from a Vanished Homeland. Her Bombay Clichs is a series of
quirky paintings of contemporary
urban India done in a traditional
Indian folk style. Excerpts from
our discussion:

A handshake that brings great expectations

The Pakistan premier was among the six South Asian leaders invited for the ceremony. He met Indias new Prime Minister Modi on
Tuesday as part of a series of bilateral meetings with all eight world
leaders.
Mr Modis invitation to Mr Sharif was seen as a bold move given
the opposition from the BJP's oldest ally, Shiv Sena, which believes
India must not resume peace talks, cultural and cricketing ties with
Pakistan unless violence along the border stops. Similarly, Mr Sharifs
decision to attend was taken despite opposition from certain quarters in Pakistan.

Milne Do!
ith the inauguration of a new government in India, it
is time to again urge the prime ministers of
both India and Pakistan to implement the agreements that
have already been signed with regard to trade and travel. In particular, the liberalised visa regime of
2012 that both governments had
agreed upon must be taken forward
to develop peace and friendship between these two nations that still have
so much in common in terms of culture,
language and shared ancestry. Sign and
share the online petition urging both governments to ease visa restrctions Milne Do: www.change.org/milnedo.

By Fazil Jamili

A candid chat
with Indian writer
Saaz Aggarwal
about Sindh, the
lost homeland of
her mother,
peace between
India and
Pakistan, and
more

A humanitarian move
akistan released 151 Indian fishermen as a goodwill gesture
ahead of the swearing-in ceremony of the new Modi-led Indian government on Monday. In an unprecedented move,
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif also ordered the release of 57
fishing boats.
The fishermen are being transported from Karachi to Lahore from
where they will cross the Wagah border and be sent home.
Last year in August Pakistan released 337 Indian fishermen from
jails in Karachi as a goodwill gesture. Another 15 Indian fishermen
were released as a goodwill gesture on Diwali.

Indian fishermen released from Pakistani prison head home. AFP photo

Some published works

Pakistan has around 229 Indian fishermen and some 780 Indian
boats in its custody, while India holds around 200 Pakistani fishermen and 150 boats. This is the first time that any side has moved to release confiscated boats.

Interestingly, you do not

even speak or write Sindhi.
What got you to write about
this part of the world while living in Pune, India?
My mother Situ Savur migrated
from Hyderabad Sindh with her
family during the partition and settled in Mumbai. None of them ever
speak about Sindh, including my
mother. But when I was 36 years
old, all of a sudden she started
sharing her childhood memories
with me. She told me she was
born near Larkana, then moved to
Hyderabad with her parents. She
also had fond memories of
Karachi. When I close my eyes, I
can still see all those places, she
told me once recalling her childhood days in Sindh.
Tell us about your book on
Sindh?
There is nothing extraordinary
about my book. It is just a collection of personal stories and memories of ordinary people, interwoven with facts and opinions from
secondary sources. I believe that
its success lies in the fact that
these stories, most of them dated
back 67 years and more, have
never been told before.
What did your mother
tell you about her lost
homeland?
The most dramatic insight I had into what migration had done to my mother,
who left Sindh at age of 13,
came when I started interviewing her for my book. Our
families come from five villages in Larkano district, she
told me, and thinking hard,
she slowly named them as I
typed into my laptop. My fathers village was Khairodero.
Then there was Naudero,
where the Bhutto family came
from; Panjodero and Ratodero. The fifth name eluded
her.
Ill get it! she promised,
Ill think and tell you. And
then she shook her head and
said, regretfully, Theres no
one left who can tell me the
name.
When I keyed the four
names into my Google task
bar, it promptly threw up
other names, including
Banguldero. My mothers
amazement showed me
that to her mind, those villages
had simply stopped existing when
she and her family left Sindh,
never to return.
In your paper presented in
the seminar you quoted a couplet of the Sindhi poet Prabhu
Wafa: Whenever you find your

Healing the wounds

Do you think India and Pakistan can ever become good

friends?
India and Pakistan were one
land, one people with a common
history and cultural kinship. How
different are Bombay and Karachi,
how different are Delhi and Lahore? People look alike, they
sound alike; their body language
and core ethics are similar. When
I travel to Calcutta, Delhi, Madras
or other places in India, things are
similar but not quite the same as
they are in Pune where I live.
Often there are strong regional
variations. People can see from
the way I dress and speak that I
have come from somewhere else.
Yet they know that I am one of
them. Why cant it be the same
when I come to Karachi too? It is
vested interests, which have kept
us apart, and it would be extremely difficult to overcome their
power and wealth to become good
friends.

Saaz Aggarwal and her book on Sindh: discovering a homeland

people, call it home. Whenever
you find Sindhis, call it your
Sindh. Does this apply in your
case?
My mothers family came from
Sindh. She and older siblings were
fiercely proud to be Sindhis. And
somehow we were not included in
that umbrella of Sindhi-ness. So
though I grew up not knowing
anything about Sindh and what it
meant to be a Sindh, I did grow up
with an understanding that there
was something essential to my
mother, which I was not and could
never be a part of.
Will you share your feelings
and the experiences during
your visits to Pakistan?
During my two short trips to
Sindh, I experienced a wide spectrum of feelings. One was the excitement of visiting a region that is
so intimately a part of our lives
and yet forbidden to us. Another
was frustration and unhappiness
with the difficulty of entering and
the restrictions on free travel. Yet
another was the longing to visit an
ancestral homeland, and delight at
doing so. A fourth was the fear of
being in a country where we are
officially perceived as enemies. If
war were to break out while we
were visiting, what would happen
to us? Karachi has the reputation
of being a violent and dangerous
place. However, most important of
all has been the love that we were
showered with. I should also say
that my first visit to Sindh was the
most exciting and most meaningful trip I have made in my life. The
warmth and hospitality my family
and I received changed our feelings towards not just Pakistan but
towards humanity as a whole.
When you told your mother
about the love you received in
Sindh, what was her response?
My mother and her siblings
were very surprised but also
happy to hear about the love and
all the messages to them from
people in Sindh. In the past, nobody in the family had ever spoken about Sindh. They had delib-

erately put it out of their minds.

So it was something new and totally unexpected. I felt a lot of latent emotion in them. None of us
said it aloud, but I think we all
missed my grandparents and
wished there was a way for us to
tell them about it.
Do you think you are now in
a better position to understand Sindh and its people and
can write another book on this
subject?
I have collected many more interesting stories and intend to
compile them into a sequel. Each

Situ Savur (left) and her daughter Saaz Aggarwal: surprised and happy
of them gives a different insight
into Sindh, the Sindhi experience,
and the Sindhi psyche. In India we
have a one-dimensional stereotype of Sindhis as calculating and
profit-oriented. Even when people
speak positively about Sindhis,
they will use adjectives like hardworking and enterprising, which
directly relate to this one-dimensional stereotype. In Pakistan, I
saw that Sindhis are labelled too
in a limiting way, different but also
deprecatory. One reason why
Sindhis are misunderstood is because they have a unique culture,
which has been misunderstood. I
feel that these stories will help
people, in particular the Sindhis
themselves, to understand that
unique culture.

Indian writer and painter Saaz Aggarwal from Pune, India,

on her friendship with a Pakistani colleague Rumana Husain

aaz and Rumana had emet much before their

first meeting in 2013
when Saaz visited Pakistan for the Karachi Literature
Festival. They met again in
early 2014. This story was first
published by Friendships
Across Borders: Aao Dosti
Karein, an initiative to build on
the power of cross-border friendships to transform the long-standing hostility between India and
Pakistan see www.facebook.
com/fabaaodostikarein. Read on:
hyperlink www.facebook.com/

fabaaodostikarein

Rumana and I came in touch

less than three years ago. We have
spent only a few hours in each
others company. Thinking about
the depth of affection I developed
for her in this short time, and my
gratitude for her generosity and
support, I realise how very lucky I
am to have found a friend like her.
We connected on Facebook. I
was writing a book about the
Sindhi community of India and
looking for sources on the other
side of the border, closer to Sindh
than I could ever be. Rumana

THE FIRST STEP

LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK

Feedback, contributions, photos, letters:

Email: amankiasha@janggroup.com.pk
Fax: +92-21-3241-8343
Post: aman ki asha c/o The News,
I.I. Chundrigar Road, Karachi

lived in Karachi and, like me, she

was a writer and painter. As we
got to know each other (virtually),
I soon realised that our ideas and
our life priorities were similar too.
When I wrote to her, she would
write back instantly, and every
time I asked for advice, she responded with wholehearted generosity. In this matter, I hold her
as a role model.
Growing up, I must have been
influenced by my mothers emotional scars from Partition (which
interrupted and ended her childhood) as well as the all-pervading

fear and suspicion of a certain

neighbouring enemy country. Setting out to visit Pakistan in February 2013, I felt a bit as if I was

The intensity of
love we received and
were surrounded with
made leaving Pakistan
a wrench

Saaz Aggarwal (right) with her Pakistani friend Rumana Husain

going on a trip to the moon: it was
a rare and splendid opportunity,
but also an expedition that required courage and tremendous
fitness. Perhaps I would never re-

Would you advise the Sindhis living in India to visit their

homeland at least once in their
lifetime?
Sadly, most of the migrant generation is no more. Those who
lived in Sindh and have memories
of a lost childhood home would be
over 70 years old. I doubt if all of
them would have sufficient motivation to tolerate the rigour of the
required paperwork and travel. As
for younger Sindhis, they feel
much more rooted in the place
where they live than their lost
homeland.
To my mind, for them to come
to terms with their identity, a visit
to Sindh is only one of the things
they need to do, and not one of the
most essential. Having said this, I
must also say that when an Indian
Sindhi meets a Pakistani Sindhi, for
both of them its like looking into a
mirror for the first time. Theres a
feeling of magic and wonder in the
air, like when two long-lost broth-

turn.
It was amazing to find that the
intensity of love with which we
had been received and surrounded made leaving Pakistan a

ers suddenly find each other. It is a

miraculous, amazing and uplifting
experience, which I wish every
Sindhi could have.
How can writers play a positive role in promoting peace?
Good quality writing is enjoyable, but it is also much more than
that. Through it, readers come
closer to understanding themselves. When we understand ourselves better, we realize that one
of the highest human priorities is
a safe and peaceful existence and
a certain degree of comfort, replete with human bonds of love.
The writer is a poet and
Editor at www.jang.com.pk.
He tweets @faziljamili

wrench. To have friends like Rumana and others we bonded with,

to know that we may never, ever
see them again, was terrible. The
parting pangs took me back to the
desolation of early childhood
boarding-school homesickness.
Perhaps they arose from some
kind of cellular memory of the
Partition pangs my grandparents
suffered.
I must say Im grateful to
Facebook, one of the rare spaces
on this planet where Indians and
Pakistanis can mingle and smile
and get to know each other and
be friends, without the hostility of
barbed wire and manipulative
negative propaganda, and try to
heal the wounds of grief and
bloodshed inflicted through
sources with ugly political motives."
For more about
Saaz Aggarwal see her
website:
http://www.saazaggarwal.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.