Blood Brothers...

Last night while partying, my friends and I met up with a Pakistani guy. There were hi and hellos and he was easily included in our group. Dancing with us, drinking beer and watching some good looking girls around us. He looked one of us, dressed like us and spoke our language. That was the moment I realized that he is one of us. A blood brother, same race and from what used to be same country a little more than six decades ago.

Then why are there lines that divide us? Pakistan and India have had long standing enmity between them. The relationship between the two neighbors has always been lined with mutual suspicion and mistrust. The derogatory slogans for the other have not been uncommon in both the countries. The Kashmir and terrorism has been the bone of contention. This hatred has overflowed in the arena of sports in form of rivalries like in cricket and hockey.

But is this the ground reality for the whole of the two nations? Does a humble fireworks factory worker in Kerala (the southernmost state of India), who can barely make ends meet, care so much to hate Pakistan or Pakistanis? Or would a poor rickshaw driver in Lahore, who listens to Bollywood music and is Shahrukh Khan fan, prefer to be at war with India.

The common man on both the sides is well aware that war would only bring ruin to both the countries. If both the Governments concentrate on developmental issues and seek each other’s cooperation then probably there will be no stopping for us. And India and Pakistan together can bring the entire south Asian continent to prosperity. The key to the future for more than a billion people of the sub continent is end of the animosity between the blood brothers.