Jai Ho blared through the speakers, a melange of girls and women draped in brightly colored saris dance rhythmically to the intoxicating beat. The excitement seeped through the air in a salty consistency. Or maybe that was just the sweat from a portly dark-haired man squeezing his oddly shaped body past a throng of foreigners. This was a just a regular day in northern India, 20 miles north of Amritsar to be precise. A friendship ceremony takes place at 5 pm every afternoon to celebrate the peaceful treaty between Pakistan and India. The two sides offer a tableau of opposites. The Indian side welcomes you with a portrait of Ghandi. Soft pastel colors mimicking your grandmothers voice as she calls you into the kitchen to lick the remaining brownie batter in the bowl. There are signs everywhere advertising India as the world largest democracy. Perhaps inviting the other side to follow suitor perhaps just a mocking jab. We were situated in the Indian side. Thousands of Indians had made the pilgrimage and piled up in bleachers 30-35 rows high. From a distance they looked like an abstract pointillist painting of a tie-die shirt. To the left where we were in the foreigner section, the situation is just as tight, but markedly more apprehensive. Although, besides our group of Canucks, few white faces in the crowd were actually visible. The atmosphere was one of celebration. We were hobbits in the shire overlooking through a series of gates and the walls the drab and lugubrious mord-Pakistan. In the Pakistani side, the bleachers were empty. A few scattered shapes sat in awkward distances from one another. The Pakistani portrait of Muhammad Ali Jinah seems to be glaring at an apologetic Gandhi. Then the ceremony started. A decorated Indian soldier berated the crowd to sit. However, a combination of his thick moustache and the peacock-like headpiece sitting on his head like a mohawk was reminiscent of something out of Monty Pythons Flying Circus. The Indian John Cleese, rifle in holster steamed in frustration as his orders to remain seated were ignored. After we all came here to see the .... Well nobody really knew what the ceremony actually consisted of. Then it happened The gates opened and closed several times. The Indian soldiers dressed in grey/brown army fatigues mirrored their black and white Pakistani counterparts. The Pakistani had an intimidating veil hanging from the back of their headpiece that tied up the dressage in intimidating fashion. After a series of high kicks, male bravado chest pumps, a simultaneous lowering of the two flags and a straight legged walk taken directly from the ministry of silly walks the ceremony was over. Then I started thinking. 5 hours to the north of this ceremony is Abottabad, the city where Bin Laden was caught and executed. Several hours to the west is Kashmir and the border where the Indian newspaper refers it as the LOC: the line of control. This point of contention has been the location were the armies of Pakistan and India have immobilized and on several occasions disobeyed the cease fire. Resulting in the shelling of local villages as a result of a valuable land dispute. As we walked down from the bleachers and made our way past the impromptu traffic Jam of Sheiks, Indians, foreigners, buses, rickshaws, cows, cars and motorbikes the number 42 reverberated over my head. 42, 42% . According to the India Times 42% of Indians aged 18-30 support a war against Pakistan.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 08:25:21 +0000
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