Cocooned Solitudes: Effects Of Environment On Children

Digression: this subject intrigues me... i can understand as a growing child one is restricted to the company parents keep...but how can people grow up in cocooned solitudes and splendid isolation and yet belong to the same village, city, state?

what about muslims from india...surely they grow up with many times more non-muslims around them...do they form strong bonds and friendships with them as the grow up?

The digression is from here. Mayank's interview has generated interesting comments. Growing up in Karachi I did not get to meet many Hindus and hardly any Sikh.

Friendship did not even arise. The only Sikh I was aware of was a white bearded Basheer Pal who had a furniture repair shop next to the Zoroastrian temple that I would glance into on the way to school.

M had some friends who were from a prominent Hindu family. I exchanged some cursory hellos with some of her friends once. Hardly counts.

There was a large Christian minority those days. And I had a few Christian friends. But their religion was not a factor at all. The normal interests bonded us all – Cricket, Squash, girls, books, movies.

We made friends from school or from the immediate neighborhood. And those were the good days. There was hardly any provincialism or ethnic tension in the air. We did not know, nor cared who was a Pathan, Baloch, Sindhi, Punjabi, Mohajir, Sunni, Shia, Ahmedi.

***

Ayub Khan's son Gohar Ayub, later to become foreign minister for a short while was the first person who tried to puncture the amity in Karachi by creating a divide between sons of the soil and Mohajirs – the refugees from India.

Some years later, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto joined the bandwagon by trying to create a fissure between Sindhis and Punjabis and Sindhis and Mohajirs in the game called Divide and Rule that we inherited from the English and excelled at.

But all these were politics for us. We continued to form strong friendships, attended functions and parties in each others home and hotels, fought and made up.

I started writing this after I wrote the digression on that board. And as I mentioned earlier in Karachi there were not many folks of other faiths. And if there were, I am sure we would have formed friendships based on our interests, not religions.

Speaking of religion all this schism, hatred and divide came much later. To give you an idea, back then I had no clue whether we were Sunnis or Shias, Hanafi, Maliki, Wahabai, Shafii, Athna Ash'ari, Khoja, Bohri, Ismaili. Well, yes, those were different days! Guess am lucky I grew up then. For that acceptance has stood me in good stead. And over the years I have become less and less rigid and almost impervious to one's religious leanings. If you are a good balanced person is all that really should matter.

***

This makes me wonder: if I had grown up 15 years later would I have been a different person?

As I reflect, am troubled. There is no way to say with certainty if I would be the same person I am today or would have succumbed to the prevailing winds and turned out to be less tolerant and more inflexible.

First of all, a majority of us are what we are as a result of an accident of birth. That would earn the boasting rights in the passport column asking for religion.

Then we pass through life, some grow, some while away and some vegetate. If I was born 15-20 years later, my whole attitude towards life would have been tinged by all the hatred and distrust floating around me.

Is it possible for a child to escape such vibes?

It is so easy to become a Jamaat e Islami child, a VHP child, a Naxalite child, a Lashkari child, a Modi child. Views and opinions bombarded directly or indirectly form a lasting impression on the child. And without much conscious effort the child succumbs.

As an adult that child would still have plenty of time to reflect and recant. But in reality what are the chances of deflecting those sub-conscious implants for the majority millions?

Most of us here are not part of the majority millions alluded to above. While there may be lingerers here, most of us have grown--matter of degrees--some more, some less.

The almost universal North American desi experience is different today. We have strong bonds of friendships with desis from across the religious and nationalistic divide. This is in both measure a reflection of individual growth and geo-political necessity. Here, we are one. Our problems are same. Forces affecting and playing on us are the same.

No wonder that here, we have left the old suspicions, misconceptions and hatreds behind.

But back to the thought that intrigued me. I would look forward to introspection by Mayank, Jawahara, bevivek and Lakshmikant and other Desicritcs.