Parents are precious not only because they give us life, nurture us and give us unconditional love. They are also crucial to our existence because it is through them that we learn the earliest markers of our world map. Our beliefs, our habits, our attitudes are all influenced by what we observe and hear from our parents or guardians in the early years of our lives. It is through our parents that we learn about our family history and get tethered to our roots and it is these ties which give us our unique identities and stability throughout our lives.
Children who grow up in dysfunctional homes, where they were constantly pulled by their parents towards their side grow up with scars which rarely heal. But even worse is where one parent is so dominant that the other’s voice is muted and their children grow up almost alienated from one side of their family. Such children not only have emotional scars, they also grow up confused and ignorant of who they are, unaware of 50% of their own family history.
Now imagine a family in which both parents hail from diverse backgrounds, each with a glorious family history and though the mother is present in the house she is merely a convenience provider. The father and children both ignore her whenever she has anything to say and simply take her for granted. Can one even imagine what emotional baggage such children will grow up with? Can these children ever grow up to be wholesome? In fact it will be no surprise to anyone if such a childhood nurtures the seeds of sociopathic behaviour.
They say that when the parents are from different cultures and diverse backgrounds the children have a tendency to be more robust both physically and mentally as their gene pool is varied. We Pakistani’s are lucky to be the children of parents who are not only completely different from each other, but both are custodians of glorious traditions. However we live in a dysfunctional home where our mother is a mere convenience provider and our father is the most dominant member of the household. When dad is not at home some children use his fear to get the others to do their bidding.
So who are these parents? Our father is our Islamic heritage and our mother is the land on which we were born – after all don’t we pay tributes to the ‘motherland’ in all our patriotic songs? Both our parents define who we are, both have histories to be proud of. In fact we are unique because of our diverse background. We are the inheritors of a truly vast historical empire. But alas we have completely ignored the history and heritage of our ‘mother’. Is there a wonder that we are spawning a whole generation of intolerant sociopaths?
I recently asked a young MBA what he knew about the Kushans and he replied they are small pillows … Aagghhh the anguish that answer gave me! We have selected only those portions of our history which coincide with our Islamic heritage, perhaps as an attempt to justify our existence – but why do we need this justification? The ancient history of India is completely ignored in our schools as if we just emerged on this land with Mohammad Bin Qasim.
Any mention of ancient Indian history draws a look of discomfort from most people and the usual response I get is “Sualeha that is the history of Hindus – we are Pakistanis and we are Muslims”. Err…there was no Islam during the time of Moejodaro, Harappa or even the hey day of Taxila, in fact there was no Christianity either. And I have news for all of you - technically speaking all Pakistanis are Hindus. That may shock you but its true.
The word Hindu is a corrupted version of the word Sindhu. In Sanskrit Sindhu means river and the term Sapta Sindhu i.e. 7 rivers was used in the Rig Veda to describe the area around the 7 tributaries of the Indus – Sutlej, Beas, Ravi, Chenab, Jehlum and 2 tributaries from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Afghanistan and the Indus river itself. The early Persians who visited this region called this area Hapta Hindu and the people who lived in this region Hindus (or Sindhus in Sanskrit) which simply means the ‘river people’. The word got associated with religion much later, in fact the people of this region did not call their religion Hinduism, the term they used was Sanatana Dharma or simply Dharma. So you see all those who are currently living in the land of Pakistan are the original Hindus.
We didn’t all migrate from the Middle East or Central Asia to this land. It has been ours for millennia and we should be very proud of it. Why are we deliberately ignoring our birthright? No wonder we have become a landless nation. We inhabit this land but are we really connected to our roots? The way we treat our most precious monuments is shameful. Our loyalties are confused because we have not been able to merge both our heritages and hence we negate one at the expense of the other. Where do we really belong? Are we part of the greater Muslim Ummah or are we part of the Indo-Pak subcontinent? The logical answer of course is both, but we didn’t learn early on in our lives how to incorporate both of them in our world view. So now we are like the children of the dysfunctional home where the mother has been ignored for so long that we have become emotionally fractured and scarred.
Children who grow up in dysfunctional homes, where they were constantly pulled by their parents towards their side grow up with scars which rarely heal. But even worse is where one parent is so dominant that the other’s voice is muted and their children grow up almost alienated from one side of their family. Such children not only have emotional scars, they also grow up confused and ignorant of who they are, unaware of 50% of their own family history.
Now imagine a family in which both parents hail from diverse backgrounds, each with a glorious family history and though the mother is present in the house she is merely a convenience provider. The father and children both ignore her whenever she has anything to say and simply take her for granted. Can one even imagine what emotional baggage such children will grow up with? Can these children ever grow up to be wholesome? In fact it will be no surprise to anyone if such a childhood nurtures the seeds of sociopathic behaviour.
They say that when the parents are from different cultures and diverse backgrounds the children have a tendency to be more robust both physically and mentally as their gene pool is varied. We Pakistani’s are lucky to be the children of parents who are not only completely different from each other, but both are custodians of glorious traditions. However we live in a dysfunctional home where our mother is a mere convenience provider and our father is the most dominant member of the household. When dad is not at home some children use his fear to get the others to do their bidding.
So who are these parents? Our father is our Islamic heritage and our mother is the land on which we were born – after all don’t we pay tributes to the ‘motherland’ in all our patriotic songs? Both our parents define who we are, both have histories to be proud of. In fact we are unique because of our diverse background. We are the inheritors of a truly vast historical empire. But alas we have completely ignored the history and heritage of our ‘mother’. Is there a wonder that we are spawning a whole generation of intolerant sociopaths?
I recently asked a young MBA what he knew about the Kushans and he replied they are small pillows … Aagghhh the anguish that answer gave me! We have selected only those portions of our history which coincide with our Islamic heritage, perhaps as an attempt to justify our existence – but why do we need this justification? The ancient history of India is completely ignored in our schools as if we just emerged on this land with Mohammad Bin Qasim.
Any mention of ancient Indian history draws a look of discomfort from most people and the usual response I get is “Sualeha that is the history of Hindus – we are Pakistanis and we are Muslims”. Err…there was no Islam during the time of Moejodaro, Harappa or even the hey day of Taxila, in fact there was no Christianity either. And I have news for all of you - technically speaking all Pakistanis are Hindus. That may shock you but its true.
The word Hindu is a corrupted version of the word Sindhu. In Sanskrit Sindhu means river and the term Sapta Sindhu i.e. 7 rivers was used in the Rig Veda to describe the area around the 7 tributaries of the Indus – Sutlej, Beas, Ravi, Chenab, Jehlum and 2 tributaries from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Afghanistan and the Indus river itself. The early Persians who visited this region called this area Hapta Hindu and the people who lived in this region Hindus (or Sindhus in Sanskrit) which simply means the ‘river people’. The word got associated with religion much later, in fact the people of this region did not call their religion Hinduism, the term they used was Sanatana Dharma or simply Dharma. So you see all those who are currently living in the land of Pakistan are the original Hindus.
We didn’t all migrate from the Middle East or Central Asia to this land. It has been ours for millennia and we should be very proud of it. Why are we deliberately ignoring our birthright? No wonder we have become a landless nation. We inhabit this land but are we really connected to our roots? The way we treat our most precious monuments is shameful. Our loyalties are confused because we have not been able to merge both our heritages and hence we negate one at the expense of the other. Where do we really belong? Are we part of the greater Muslim Ummah or are we part of the Indo-Pak subcontinent? The logical answer of course is both, but we didn’t learn early on in our lives how to incorporate both of them in our world view. So now we are like the children of the dysfunctional home where the mother has been ignored for so long that we have become emotionally fractured and scarred.
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