Now down to the real story.
I had the opportunity to borrow a thin Young Adult’s book about Pakistan.
Most of the facts in there, i have already heard from Zubair previously. But it kinda got legitimated by this book (written by a non-native! LOL) but additionaly, it details the background of how things came about.
The Aryans were the early settlers of this region of which most Pakistanis are descendants of. They were tall and fair. and thought they were superior to the dark-coloured natives of the Dravidians and invented the caste system putting the latter at the lowest called Untouchables and themselves at the top as Brahmins. They were also the one who developed Sanskrit, from which a lot of languages are derived from including, Urdu, Bengali and even Malay! Why the name Singapore originally Singa (malay for Lion) + “pur” (City in Sanskrit).
It’s funny how when we were learning history in Seconday school, i had never associated the Aryans and the Indus Valley as modern day India and Pakistan! It’s mind blowing when i discovered it recently.
If you had watched the movie Little Buddha starring Keanu Reeves, you would know that Gautama Buddha was an Indian Prince who fled to find divination and fasted for days and weeks until he was bony skinny. One thing that always confused me was whether Buddhism is an Indian or Chinese religion. Ayah ever attempted to enlighten me on this topic but i never got it.
Only after i read this book, did i know that although Buddha was indeed Indian and preached there, the great Emperor Asoka helped to spread it to China, Korea, Japan, Cambodia, Burma, Thailand and Sri Lanka where it remained to be the dominant religion in some of these countries, i believe.
Most of us would know that Pakistan was part of India once upon a time. But what Zubair didn’t tell me was Pakistan and India share the same date of independence! Well almost. They were declared independent by the British officially at the stroke of midnight on 14th Aug 1947. While India celebrates on 15th, Pakistan does do on 14th. This part i have yet to ask why 
Roughly, this is what happened. During the Mogul dynasty ruled by Muslim leaders, that Islam flourished and being embraced rather widely all across the board though some may be for reasons other than true revelation. However, there were times and places when a Muslim Sultan reigned and at others an Indian Maharaja governed.
This, in a way, caused confusions and tensions. Esp in tolerating and respecting each other’s beliefs. Islam and Hinduism are very contrasting religion. For eg: Cows are sacred to Hindus and therefore they cannot kill nor eat beef. On the other hand, we celebrate our Eidul Adha by SLAUGHTERING and feasting on them. Another eg and i quote from the book, “Sometimes these riots occurred because HIndus staged noisy processions near mosques”.
These brought the likes of Dr Mohammed Iqbal and Muhammad Ali Jinnah aka Quaid-i-Azam to come to the conclusion that it is just too impossible to even try uniting faithfuls of these two religions together and so they worked on dividing the peace of land into two: India and Pakistan.
Sections where the dominant residence are Muslim became part of Pakistan and vice versa. This, in turn, led to the disputed territory of Kashmir. While it is dominantly Muslim, the ruler was an Indian Maharaja. For fear that the King would get military assistance from India to oust the Muslims in order to maintain his reign, the people rioted and caused exactly what they feared to happen, happened.
Now, i’ve heard of all those names before but could never relate who they are and what they’ve done for the country. For eg: i didnt know Muhd Ali Jinnah and Quaid-e-Azam is the same person! *slap forehead* Masya Allah, this book has helped me to understand a lot.
I remember laughing when Zubair said that during his grandfather’s time, there were a lot of abandoned houses with treasures inside or buried underground! He simply said bcos during that time was partition was in the making and the Hindus migrated over to India and the Muslims to Pakistan.
What he missed out though was that, there were war like scenes going around, riots everywhere. the people of those times literally fled for their lives! So that’s why they had no time to sell their lands nor pack their valuables with them. Poor them. But i’m sure the Muslims in India suffered the same fate as well.
I used to think that Karachi is Pakistan’s capital because that’s the city i frequently heard or read about being the heart of the business centre and near the sea. Well.. i wasnt totally wrong. Karachi was indeed the city of choice to be capital right after independence. However, the govt found it to be too overcrowded with refugees, businessmen and the lot that they decided to move it temporarily to Rawalpindi and i quote, “partly so that the govt could not be said to be influenced by business interests”.
in 1967, after 6 years of construction, Islamabad was born and is till now the capital of Pakistan.
Zubair ever mentioned in passing that Bangladesh used to be a part of Pakistan too. Well.. it was the first time i heard about it and i just took his word for it. But i finally got to know the details from this book.
Bangladesh used to be known as East Pakistan. They are separated by 1,600km of land that is India. They speak a slightly different language called Bengali. They only thing that kept them together was Islam. After Pakistan became independent, East Pakistan had lots to complain about. For eg: Why should the capital be in West Pakistan when East Pakistan outnumbered their counterpart in population? So on and so forth. Until at last, Pakistan recognised them as a separate nation of Bangladesh (dont know on which date).
Apart from these chronological events, i also learnt that:
- Pakistan has a lot of desserts. I mean deserts. haha! They have sandy, rocky earth and not much greenery.
- Bcos Lahore is a more inland plain, it is about 20 celsius in the day but can drop as low -1 degrees at night. I suppose that is why it will be diff to snow on the plain w the day going up to 20. But there sure are a lot of snows on the mountains!
- I knew Pak means pure. but i just found out that “istan” means land in Sanskrit
This has been from the book of Major World Nations. Written by John C Caldwell. Published by Chelsea House Publishers.
Before i got married, i surfed scores of websites to get more info about Pakistan. Somehow, it felt either too limited, or shallow, or too boring to read. I resorted to Lahore Metblogs to know how the modern pple live in the now. But i still felt like i dont really know Pakistan yet. Not to mention having NOT seen it yet. I was hungry for pictures!!
This book has quenched my thirst to know my husband’s country of origin. (Well, actually i have always liked Pakistani / Indian guys. So im not exactly just interested in it bcos my husband happens to be a Pakistani. LOL)
It has even conjured some national maybe patriotic spirits for this country. I want to contribute something. I fantasized working at the Singapore embassy there. Setting up one management model not just to be envied of, but to be adopted as well by other organisations.
Still, not wanting to be in politics, i want to help to reduce poverty, increase employment rate, abolish bribery or favouritism and the incumbent terrorism, increase efficiency and order. Plant more trees and grasses, develop the farms, promote tourism. OMG… a long list of aspirational things i would like to do there.
Just two things are hindering me from doing just so. My monthly financial commitments payable in SGD and the Ex. Go figure.
Note to Pakistani readers: Do feel free to correct me if im wrong or to add any other info
