I have been always curious about our neighbour, Pakistan. It’s a country born out of disaster. Islamic faith and fundamentalism ruled from the time of partition and continues with a prolific variable of Islam. It’s also the first country in the world that hanged its Prime Minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and his daughter Benazir Bhutto also a Prime Minister shot dead while campaigning.

It’s a country ruled by army generals and multiple coups. A country so rich in literature, music and hospitality that leaves doors open to strangers.  Yet, it’s a country with vast swathes of land owned by generations of landlords and its poor citizens who go poorer than before. Pakistan does not have a middle class.

There are mosques relating to Sunni religion on every street and Islamic schools or madarsaas that teaches Islam to the children of poor.

The landlords send their children abroad to study, work and enshrined by the Islamic faith, I have friends, doctors, professors who have become moulana and started teaching tenets of Islam after a successful western education.

Pakistan is also the poorest nation in the world because its politics are controlled by a small group of elites who look after themselves neglecting the common people. Pakistan leads in corruption. There is a lack of democracy and its political system is shrouded by Islamic fundamentalism.

I am an Indian from India, practicing Orthopaedic Surgeon from Gwalior. I worked in high altitude hospitals and snow-capped borders of Bhutan and China, in Arunachal Pradesh, snow-capped borders of India and China and Srinagar, Kashmir where Pakistani backed insurgency was taking place. I was the only helicopter borne doctor, to an extent I came back just for having tea at my home with my helicopter. I could see the Chinese looking towards me as I flew near their border, numerous times in a day.

My terrain in Africa started in Niamey, Niger at the height of civil war, in the black townships of Mzilikazi in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and finally found a one-way ticket to the Bantustan, Republic of Transkei with my Indian passport stamped not for South Africa and South West Africa. It was 1991. Apartheid fell in 1994 and I developed my skills and education to become the Professor and Head of Emergency Medicine, Gender Based Violence at Cecilia Makiwane Hospital named after the first black registered nurse in apartheid South Africa. The hospital is situated in the black township of Mdantsane the second biggest after Soweto. I remember the smiling face of the Director General of Health in the Bantustan of Transkei who came to the steps of the aircraft and uttered, Sir, Welcome to Transkei. It was a welcome meant for a head of state. I smile whenever I remember those moments. I am now a South African citizen, an overseas citizen of India and an honorary Colonel for life in the South African Police Service.

I came across Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who entered bribing with their multiple wives and many children. I gave employment to many as doctors but they didn’t stay long. During the apartheid period, the South African Passport opened to United Kingdom where then a visa was not a necessity. Soon the Britishers found that big groups of Pakistanis arriving to UK by this route were actually a part of the radical Islamization in the UK. In South Africa, they lived selling out dated groceries to the black people and had competitions from Zimbabweans, Nigerians, Ethiopian and Somalis. They all fought a deadly battle on the streets, stabbing and shooting each other. At the hospital, they all encountered me, pleading in Urdu, Bangla, Punjabi and Pushto. I spoke to them and tried saving their lives but most often they died on the theatre table. A lonesome death far from their home.

They still visit me at my home, my only instruction to them, their wives must not wear the burkha in my presence and they must not wear the high pyjamas on their visit to my home. I never charged from any one of them. They all married black indigenous women as a marriage of convenience. The United Kingdom removed the free entry without a visa and then the Islamic Radical groups started flourishing in Africa, its core being South Africa.

Around five years back, I received an unusual request from a friendly nation. They needed confirmed location and addresses of an Islamic Dental Surgeon practicing in Johannesburg and a Pakistani national who escaped the dragnets and found refuge in South Africa. I obliged and through my connections got the exact location and address. The very next day in the middle of night, a small plane with Rwanda markings landed in the Johannesburg airfield. American soldiers alighted and used bullet proof 4x4 s rushing to those two homes. They captured, were head covered and taken out. The operation took less than an hour. The dental surgeon a product of Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg was a confirmed conduit for Al-Qaida funds and the Pakistani was an Al- Qaida assassin protected in Pakistan. He was involved with others in the beheading of an American citizen in Pakistan. The reason for South Africa going to the International Court of Justice at Hague against Israel was the constant pressure maintained by Islamic groups, The Government of South Africa paid in billions of Rands. Israel continues its war on Gaza. There continues to be shortage of monetary funds for the recruitment of three thousand freshly passed out doctors from their own medical schools in South Africa. The health sector is now crumbling down.

A certain Bangladeshi man fell down on the streets of a posh Harare sector. He just stumbled and fell. The autopsy carried out said that he had chronic dehydration. This man was an army officer in Bangladesh and was responsible for the murder of Sheikh Mujib’s family. He carried out the assassination with Major Dalim. Before dying, he had taken a cup of coffee laced with polonium. The Forensic doctor along with his two helpers also passed away in Harare. Zimbabwe.

While in India, along with the Kingdom of Bhutan, I had complete control over the Chicken Neck, the narrow corridor involving New Jalpaiguri, New Alipurdwar, New Coochbehar and the border district of Jaigaon. Tea gardens and hamlets reigned on both the sides of the road and beyond the borders. People brought me fresh Hilsa fish and as always information. They told me about their families and petty squabbles too which I sorted, telling the Bangladesh Border Guards and their commander. Their only protest with me, was why am I delaying my marriage and bringing a bowdi to show them.

the wilys jeep screamed
moving up on mountains
in a perseverance of mist
and memories
of gravel roads
and last encounter
a kiss and an aroma
stayed behind
you are still there
i know
and I am still
around
the buddhist flags
flapped in a near horizon

Back in Delhi and Gwalior, suddenly life turned a rough relevance after years living in the north-east. Perhaps, I could no longer live another life. North Lakhimpur and Mathabhanga were more than just small towns. These were living alternatives from where I leapt frequently into rampant undecided colors. Huts and tea gardens found shelter in many a violent season. Hurts remained, shielding me from thoughts of such unwary feelings. Eyes replicate to streets, traveling and hidings within besieged highways, the darkness we were supposed to hunt. Losing you long back then was perhaps an ancient rite, longer than I had ever thought. I fear this change in me, in such sudden windless horizons. I remember Lakpa Sherpa, my driver giving me frequent uneasy sideway glances. He was overprotective of his sahib. I had closed my eyes. Phuntsholing came closer. 

Lakpa died, a bullet found him finally, in our common search, revealing the unknown. Closer to death, he shared with me, halos of many a sun breaks he had lived through. He was one of those many, I have still with me.

And again from Hashimara to Jaigaon and even beyond in the Kingdom of Bhutan, I ruled supreme, tiny villages and ponds, shadowcast with perpetual fogs in teagardens, skies came down to touch me, in my wilys jeep, I looked for the unknown, the dooars rushing at the junction of a moist green and darker skies, I leapt into a boundless halo, a storm within me, nurtured in your leaving stayed safe. Mathabhanga was a hamlet, I stayed the night there 

Tomorrow, we drive together chasing a broken sun.