A Letter to Malala

I’d been wanting to read the book ‘I am Malala’ since I first saw it on the shelf at some book store on TV. I pined for it at the roadside seller’s, and I stared at it un-blinkingly as I stood at the Crossword display. I wanted it so much, my husband gave it to me as a gift on our six-month-versary!

And I was so desperate to read it, I sat down with the book without so much as a ‘thank-you’ to the poor man!

The book, by itself, is heart-touching. It speaks of the longing of a child for the simplicity of life she had once taken for granted. It touches your heart’s chord when the dirty work of politicians and the hurtful work of the Taliban destroy her country and her homeland. Her desperation to continue her education, and her anger and frustration to be able to do nothing grabs at you.

But half-way through the book, I had to stop. It was a single line written in the simplest of manners which caught my eye, and disturbed me so much, I kept going back to it every few pages. Malala describes at one point in her book, ‘India, their great enemy’.

Really? Why? What has India really done to earn the title of being Pakistan’s ‘great enemy’? Despite the tens of terror attacks by Pakistani fanatics, despite the Pakistani army creating havoc at the borderline of my country, despite their turning the Heaven on Earth Kashmir into a modern-day hell, India has always treated Pakistan with kindness.

It has always been India, willing to reach out a hand of brotherhood to Pakistan.  India, always wanting to put an end to the chaos between the two countries. India, who has been pushing like an older brother, instead of a rude dictator, unlike the other country offering their support.

Because, whether we like it or not, the history of Pakistan and India go way beyond the 76 years of its separation. And the history of millions of years cannot be so easily wiped off. Indians in their hearts (and this is a staunch Indian, terrorist-hater talking here, people!) want to just end the feud and live like brothers and sisters with Pakistan again.

And it is Pakistan which has time and again raised an ugly head to every effort by the Indian government to resolve the enmity.

So who is the villain here? Pakistan, or India? And I was very saddened to read MY India being described as ‘their great enemy’.

My husband says to me to let it go. She’s just a child, he says. And yes, she is. But a child who is regarded as a World Leader. A child who was invited to speak at the UN. A child who travels the world, and whose words reach out to the many other children back in her home-country. If she writes such words, what hope is there left?

Malala, I salute you. You have fought through the odds, and are still fighting. I understand your pain, because at one point of my life, I too spent a childhood in a country not my own, pining for my people. And I understand your frustration, because as an Indian, I go through it everyday (though, thankfully, we have not the Taliban here).

But reading those words caused me more pain than ever, and that is why this blog had to be penned here today.