Once upon a time there was an Indian boy who grew up in Karachi. At the time, he did not know just how odd that simple fact was. That boy was me. I lived in Karachi because my father, a diplomat, was posted to the Indian consulate in the port city. I was three years old when we arrived in Karachi in 1983, and nearly six when we left in 1986.
Given my age, my world in Karachi orbited two locations: home and school. ‘Home’ was Hindustan Court in Clifton, a building housing the Indian government’s consular employees. Our residence was probably once part of a mansion that was haphazardly carved out into a number of small, bizarrely-shaped homes — our house, for instance, featured disproportionately large windows that went on like a runaway train. Well, in our part of the world we all know that partitions invariably have unexpected consequences.
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There was one clue that there was a difference between my world and the world that my friends from school inhabited. In school, when we played ‘fauj fauj’, a variant of ‘cops and robbers’, every child — including myself — wanted to be part of the Pakistan fauj, as this team always won. But at home, I discovered that it was the Indian fauj that always won. It was the kind of paradox that makes little sense to a child, but I quickly made my peace with the discrepancy and learned to switch sides depending on where I played.
Beyond school and home, I have happy memories of going to the beach often. I remember the sea water was brimming with little fish no more than an inch long, and once, I lost a ball in the sea. I was told the ocean would take my ball all the way to Bombay. At the time, I had no idea what or where Bombay was.
A local man named Iqbal would clean our house every day, and for my sister and me, he was our friend. When we finally left Karachi for Delhi, Iqbal sent us candy and toys, including a View-Master, a toy through which you could look at stereoscopic photos. The photo slides that came with the View-Master were of Islamic holy places and festivals, and I would spend hours looking at pictures of Mecca and Muharram activities. I later learned that other children used View-Masters to look at cartoons.
My first school in Karachi was Onimo Montessori Private School. I remember it as a happy place. One day, when the school closed for the day, no one arrived to pick me up. I waited until it was just me and the watchman. He sat with me until someone finally arrived. What I remember most is that he also shared his lunch with me. It was this simple but unselfish act of kindness that has stayed etched in my memory.
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When I turned five, it was time to go to a proper school. I remember Jennings Private School as a scary place full of rough boys who were bigger than me. A few children from the Indian consulate also attended Jennings, and my best friend was a girl named Seviyan (like the sweet dish). I remember a prizegiving ceremony at Jennings, when I had won something. The teacher moved me from the back of the line to the front. The boy who was now standing behind me did not approve of his demotion, and, once the teacher left, he pushed me behind him. So did the next boy. And the next boy. When the teacher came by again, I was standing last in line once more.
As a child, I was terrified of Jinnah’s mausoleum. We had gone to the mazaar with family friends, and a guard told us how someone had been arrested there recently. I do not know what the arrested man had done to deserve the punishment, but I got it in my head that the longer we stayed at the mausoleum, the more likely it was that my family would be arrested as well. It did not help that the image of Jinnah that we saw most often was a very sober portrait on television. His extremely serious countenance only added to my fear of his final resting place.
As adults we attach great significance to religion and nationality, but these concepts did not matter during my childhood in the city by the sea. I don’t think I was even aware of the existence of religion, or that I might be considered to belong to a different religion than my friends. My parents tell me that I would sometimes come home from school and ask why we did not say ‘Bismillah’ before our meals. In school, a small group of us was separated from the others during Islamic Studies classes. Our alternative class involved dull moral tales in English, not Urdu.
In hindsight, I am aware that it is relatively unusual to be an Indian in Pakistan. At the time, I had no real idea what either term meant. I knew that when we went to Delhi to visit our relatives, we were in India, and when we were at home, we were in Pakistan, but so what? It was like saying, “When I am at the beach I am at the beach, and when I am at the ice cream parlour, I am at the ice cream parlour.” I had no idea that people in Karachi and Delhi spoke two different languages — I spoke in exactly the same way regardless of which country I was in. Besides, the main thing I knew about India was that there were three famous Indians: Indira Gandhi, Kapil Dev and Superman. I didn’t know what any of those people did, just that they were famous Indians.
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I have only the vaguest recollection of the day we left Karachi. We sat in the airport lounge as our flight was delayed, and a small group of men were also waiting with us. When it was finally time to leave, they did not get on the flight. Instead, they stood at a distance and waved goodbye to us. They were probably the men whose job it had been to follow us around for three years. They probably know where all my favourite haunts in Karachi are located, even today.
Aman Bharti now lives in London. He tweets @amandeguerre
Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, August 9th, 2015.
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