Source: Dawn
She is pursuing a major in International Relations and a minor in Latina/o Studies at Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley.
Lahore is my native city — it has always been the dearest sense of love I have felt.
It was the beautiful gardens and my most favourite majestic Old Lahore. It was the mouthwatering hareesa at Gawalmandi on a foggy winter morning and it was the sun shining upon the tree-lined Canal Road.
It was the summer air mixing with aromatic smoke coming off a muttonkebab grill; it was the kohla puris from Khussa Mahal.
But what outdid them all were the large hearts of Lahoris.
The Lahoris who dance to dhol beats. The Lahoris who run on tall glasses oflassi. The Lahoris who show you why if you haven’t seen Lahore you haven’t lived.
These people are Christians, Hindus and Muslims.
I grew up in Pakistan meeting people who did not identify as traditional Muslims and yet, never felt alien. We grew closer and at this point, some of them are the dearest people in my life today.
I do not think religion has much to do with the goodness of a person but the social narrative around ‘religious minorities’ in Pakistan did make me view these individuals in a different light.
It is unfortunate that for the most part of my life, I have seen Pakistan being fraught with violence, terrorism and religious extremism; plagued with rampant and senseless brutality against minorities. But I never saw these non-Muslims falter; they were to me, the most lively, compassionate and happy beings in my world.
They were winners even though we failed them quite a few times. They were in love with us even though we gave them enough reasons to hate us.
The ambiguous and horrendous mix of religion and state never seemed to work out very well for Pakistan in my eyes. It unnerved me every time amaulvi was audacious enough to issue fatwas against women.
It made me uncomfortable that my society feared backlash when it came to condemning questionable accusations relating to alleged blasphemy.
It made no sense to me that the idea of a secular Pakistan is just wrong and unspeakable.
All this and more, informed my beliefs, passions and a laughably naive desire to change the world. Soon enough, it was time for college and the United States of America happened to my life.
As I moved to western Massachusetts from Lahore, suddenly it mattered that I was brown and Muslim. It mattered because now I was a minority.
In my two years of living in America, I have understood more than I ever did in Pakistan, the rhetoric of majority and minority.
It is discomforting to have a conscious awareness that your reality is different than that of an average American because you will probably face bigotry at the hands of a presidential front-runner, and that an airport guy will occasionally raise a brow because you have the green passport in your hand and are wearing a locket saying Allah.
Categories: America, Asia, Minorities, Pakistan, The Muslim Times, USA