A Tale Of Three Conversations-Part 2

Welcome back, guys! As I told you in the first part of the story, we had planned a trip to London during the weekend after Valentine’s Day. It was a really fun trip! I even shared the stage with Dua Lipa!!! :)

Read the first part of the story here.

The London trip was one of my most awesome trips ever! I went to see Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Madame Tussaud’s wax museum, London bridge, and a few other attractions, but the biggest attraction for me was the Lord’s Cricket Ground!

If you are a cricket fan and get a chance to visit London, whatever you do, you don’t want to miss the Lord’s Tour!

They give you a detailed tour of the entire arena. You are also taken to the place from where the great Indian cricketer Sourav Ganguly waved his shirt after India won the Natwest series in 2002! A few of the great cricket players had a fixed seat of their choice in the pavilion, and guess what, you are allowed to sit there! The price is also not much, just about 25£ or 30£ (INR 2500–3000).

I feel, if I tell you about it in any more detail, It would result in an article of its own. ( Which, I feel, I should write, but will see about that later. This story should be completed first.)

This is the press box at lords!

Believe it or not, I am sitting at Sachin Tendulkar’s seat in the lord’s dressing room !!!!!!

I started this article by describing my vacation because I did not want to take you directly to the second conversation!

The reason is, I am not someone who could be described as an aggressive person, I refrain from quarrelling over things, even with my closed ones!

But this short conversation had got on my nerves! So, I decided, to talk about some good things first!

The only reason I am sharing this conversation is that now, when I think of it, it seems to be silly and a bit comedic! Nevertheless, it was interesting!

So here it goes…

My friends and I had returned from London after the weekend and our lives were back to normal.

Then came the day of 26th February 2019; the Indian airforce carried out the second surgical strike on a terrorist camp in Balakot, which is a place in Pakistan occupied Kashmir region.

It was said that 300 terrorists were killed in that attack who were planning to infiltrate into India with intentions to cause attacks! I was happy because the death of 40 Indian soldiers was avenged! As every other Indian would have been!

Now the next day I had plans to go to watch a movie after office. Generally, I would take a bus, or use my bicycle, for commuting, but that day the weather was not great, so I didn’t want to use my bicycle. I had come to the office by bus. While leaving I was a bit late, so I had missed the usual bus and the next bus was after 45 mins, therefore I called a cab.

I was talking to my mom who lives in India while waiting for the cab. Actually, the time difference between India and the UK is five hours and thirty minutes. So when my office used to end by 4:30 pm in the UK it used to be 9:00 pm in India. Sometimes if there was some extra work, I used to leave the office a bit late and hence would not be able to call at home. But that day I had finished all my work by 5:15 pm, hence I got a chance to talk to my family.

The cab arrived at my office, I told the cab driver to take me to Central retail park, while I was still on the phone. I talked for some more time.

When I finished my call, the cab driver asked me (in Hindi) “Aap India se hai?” Which means, “Are you from India?”

I said “Yes!”

I thought he might also be from India, but he was not. I knew this because of what he said next!

“Heard, your fighter planes dropped bombs on barren lands and flew away when chased!!”

Without wasting time, I replied, “Good for you! Then all your terrorists are safe!”

He was referring to the news from Pakistani media, which had propagated this silly idea. Indian airforce is one of the world’s biggest airforces and a highly capable one, so there is a ‘cat in a hell’s chance’ that this would be true!

He said, “It is in the news! They are showing pictures, there was nothing there!”

I asked, “Which news? The Pakistani news? When you go home today why don’t you have a look at what BBC has to say!”

He hit back, “There are no terrorists, it is always the Indian govt and media which says so without proof!”

I replied sarcastically, “Neither the terrorists were there nor they were executed! What a win-win situation, why are you whining about it then?”

He was not going to give up easily, he said, “It’s you guys, who are always whining, and blame all your problems on Pakistan! Ok Can what do you want to say about Kulbhushan?”

Kulbhushan Jadav, is an Indian citizen, a retired naval officer, who was captured by Pakistan from Iran on charges of espionage. He was still under trial during the time of this conversation! Later on, the Pakistani courts sentenced him to death, but India appealed in the international court of justice against the sentence and was able to get it repealed!

Instead of answering his question directly, I chose to put him in a spot like he was trying to do with me!

I said, “And, what will you say about Kasab?”

Ajmal Amir Kasab is a Pakistani terrorist who was caught red-handed during the Mumbai terrorist attacks of 2008. A brave police officer, and posthomous Ashok Chakra awardee Mr. Tukaram Omble had to lay down his life to catch him.

The Ashok Chakra is India’s highest peace-time gallantry award for extraordinary bravery and valour in the line of duty. Kasab was later convicted and hanged!

He said, “That guy was not even a Pakistani!..”

Before he could complete his sentence, I replied, “But Kulbhushan is definitely Indian!”

Perhaps, he didn’t have a reply, so he continued about Kasab!

“Kasab was a Hindu! he was wearing a Hindu holy thread in his hand! It was Indian propaganda to frame Pakistan! ”

I had the most perfect answer, in the world for that!

“That’s the point! He was wearing the Hindu holy thread but in the wrong hand! Girls wear that in the left hand and guys wear it in the right! He wore it in his left hand!”

Well, any decent person, would show some restrain at this point but that was not the case with this guy!

“Why was Kulbhushan in Pakistan? You certainly have no answer!”

I had an answer, “First of all, he was captured in Iran, not in Pakistan! As I understand, he is under trial in your country, and I believe the court of law delivers justice in Pakistan as well! I am not well informed about the particulars of his case, but the judges presiding over the hearing, I hope will consider the facts and make the right decision. Let the law take its course!”

Do you think this guy was going to stop??

“Kashmir was never India’s, it has been independent for a long time, on what basis does India says, it is theirs?”

This was a senseless statement! There were many princely states in India, Kashmir was one of them, which was being ruled by Maharaja Hari Singh. During the time of the partition of India, the princely states were given a choice to join either India or Pakistan or remain independent.

If you ask me this was unfair to the people of India, because they had fought together against the British under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, peacefully irrespective of their differences, regional, religion or otherwise, for one India!

Due to the vested interest of some politicians and with their strategy of propagating communal disharmony, India was now being divided into two nations one for Muslims — Pakistan, the other which did not have any such affiliation towards such things, India. Even today India has a larger population of Muslims than Pakistan!

The ruler of Kashmir was delaying to announce his decision. Then the newly formed Pakistan attacked Kashmir. It did not attack using the military directly but appointed one of its army personnel to form an army of tribal Muslims which also comprised of Pakistani soldiers in civil dresses to attack and annex Kashmir.

Pakistan send around 10,000 tribal goons to ransack Kashmir, they not only carried out loots but also mass murder and rapes, Then the ruler had no choice but to ask for help from India.

The Indian prime minister and the home minister might have agreed to help but Lord Mountbatten who was the viceroy of India, and overseeing the partition of India, took a stand that unless Kashmir is a part of India, India can not send its military to fight against Pakistan. As that would mean India is entering a war just after its freedom. Also the command of the Indian army was still under the British!

Let me also remind you the UN was formed just 2 years back, in 1945 after the end of the second world war. The whole world had expectations from the UN to stop international wars, and Britain was a founding member of the UN. So Lord Mountbatten suggested if Kashmir was a part of India, only then a military reinforcement could be sent!

The tribal goons had created havoc in Kashmir, they had been barbaric in the city of Baramula, and were now moving towards Srinagar, even a large portion of Kashmiri soldiers had joined the Pakistani attackers because they were lured to be given better positions in an Islamic govt. which will be established once Kashmir was captured. Sadly this left the common people exposed to a barbaric pack of wolves!

The maharaja finally decided to join India and he signed the instrument of accession on the 26th of October,1947. It’s a famous story that he gave his pistol to one of his men and told him to shoot him and not to wake him up if the Indian planes didn’t arrive in Srinagar the next day!

Well, he was really lucky! Even though the viceroy of India was still hesitant to send the army (He thought there would be a problem of resources ) our home minister was able to persuade him and he signed the instrument of accession after midnight, on the 27th of October. Only after his signature the document would have been considered official.Then the Indian fighter planes were sent to Srinagar in the morning!

We were successful to a large extent, but before the Indian army could drive them away completely under the rising international pressure the battle was halted and the status quo as of that point was called the line of control (LOC). It was taken as the temporary border. Our then prime minister, Jawahar Lal Nehru proposed to ensure peace in the Kashmir Valley, with the help of the United Nations. A move which was criticised even by our then home minster, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, who along with V. P. Menon(an Indian civil servant) was responsible for uniting the whole of India! I also feel Nehru did a mistake here, but let’s admit he was not doing an easy job!

The UN team proposed that first Pakistan should withdraw the tribals and Pakistani nationals from the region and when the UN informs India that this process has been completed, India would withdraw its forces and a plebiscite would take place!

Here is the link to that UN resolution:

https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/111955/?ln=en#record-files-collapse-header

More than 70 years have passed Pakistan has not completed this activity and the LOC is still there! The area on the Pakistani side of the LOC, even though an Indian territory is under Pakistani occupation, is called as Pakistan Occupied Kashmir or POK.

Now, this guy would have given me a very hard time if I would have tried to explain to him all that!!!

So what I said instead was, “By that logic Whole Pakistan is India’s!!!!”

There was a momentary silence!

I grabbed this opportunity with both hands and said, “Please stop here, right next to this shop!”

I left the cab without wasting any time! The fare was already paid through the app, and I crossed to the other side of the road at the first opportunity!

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The theatre was around 500 meters away from where I got off the cab. While I was walking, I was thinking, what had just happened? I had a verbal spat with a stranger!!

Any other day I would have avoided it! But this was not just any other day, it was a unique day, I never had to confront anybody, who was anti -India and pro-Pakistan, in my entire life!!!

Luckily, I never met that guy again.

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So these were two of the three conversations, the first one was filled with empathy, this one not so much but it was unique!

The third conversation was something which I will cherish all my life! If you enjoyed my little adventure till here, you would love the last part! So please follow me, to be informed when I put out the final portion of this Tale!

see you soon……..