Knowing that the blizzard was coming, some international students at the George Washington University decided to spend the Saturday night in a room overlooking downtown Washington, DC.
The evening started with tea but as it grew darker, someone placed a bottle of single malt on the only table in the room.
The drinks encouraged some to sing. And as always, the Latin American students were the first to volunteer. The Indians were the next. When a Pakistani got up to sign, his Indian friend urged him to begin with Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s “revolutionary songs.”
He obliged. Other South Asians joined him and soon they were singing Faiz’s famous poem, “We will see, yes, we will see the day that has been promised.”
As they finished, a Russian student asked: “Was it a revolutionary poem?” When she was told that it was, she said: “It sounded romantic to me or at least the tune was.”
Some attempted to translate the entire poem but that too did not convince the Russian student.
“I know why it sounds romantic to you,” said a South Asian student. “You are used to bloody revolutions, while we have not yet had a bloody revolution in South Asia.”
“But why not?” asked the Russian. “There is enough poverty, deprivation and cruelty in South Asia to cause a bloody revolution.”
A Pakistani student argued that the Taliban had shed enough blood to deserve this title.
“Not really,” said the Russian, “it is not a revolution, just an angry reaction to certain developments.” Besides, she added, the region where the Taliban operated was culturally closer to Central Asia than the Subcontinent.
The discussion reminded me of a similar conversation I recently had with a Western diplomat in Islamabad. “Had this 12-hour a day load-shedding happened in a Western city, people would have turned the entire city upside down,” he said. “But there is very little collective reaction here. People accept it with a little bit of unease, as if it is part of their fate.”
“Fate, is that the key word?” I asked the students. “Don’t we always say that everything is written, it’s all part of our fate? If everything is already written, why react?”
A South Asian student noted that even Faiz’s poem talks about this fate, “the day that’s written from the very beginning.”
Others blamed our colonial past for our docile nature. “Two hundred years of colonisation has killed the passion, the aggression that’s needed for a revolution,” said one of them.
As the discussion turned to the psyche of a colonised nation, I shared with them my personal experience with this mentality (although I do not believe that this is the only factor that’s preventing a revolution in South Asia).
“This application? No, I cannot send it to my officer. It is improper,” said the clerk at the federal ministry for works in Islamabad.
“What is improper about it?” I asked him.
“You say, ‘Dear sir’, and then go straight to what you want. It is not how you write an application to a senior officer. I will not send it to the Joint Secretary Saheb.”
A day earlier, I had participated in a rally demanding freedom of expression. “We want freedom. Free the press.” chanted the crowd as it marched towards the parliament square. There were several hundred journalists – almost two-thirds of the city’s “pen tribe.”
So I was not ready to give in so easily.
“It is proper,” I said to him, “please send it.”
“I will not but I will tell you how to write an application,” he said.
He started dictating to me: “With due respect and humble submission, I beg to state that...”
I refused to obey.
“Is JS Saheb your friend or a relative?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“Then why do you address him like a friend?” he asked.
“I do not. I called him ‘Dear sir’. I do not address my friends as dear sirs,” I said.
“So how do you address your friends?” he asked.
“With a simple hi or hello,” I said.
“I am not talking about telephones. How do you begin a letter you write to a friend?” he asked again.
“Told you, with a hi, like Hi Khalid, Hi Razia,” I explained.
“And you are educated?” he asked.
“I have a university degree,” I said.
“Oh, degrees. From where?” he asked.
“London,” I said.
“Oh, so you are one of those London-returns! They are the worst. They know no manners,” he said.
“I strongly object to that,” I said.
“Please do not. If you had manners, you would do what I am asking you to and would not waste our time,” he said.
“And what are you asking me to do?” I asked.
“Wait, wait,” he said, “You are a London-return. I know your problem. You have a huge ego. You cannot be obedient, can you?”
“Precisely,” I said.
“Obedience always helps,” he murmured. “I started as a junior clerk, became a senior clerk, now I am a superintendent.”
Then he opened his drawer and brought the photo copy of a printed application.
“Fill this out. Since you are not writing it, this will not hurt your ego,” he said.
I looked at the paper. It started with the golden words he had suggested when the argument began: “With due respect and humble submission …”
“This is the best I can do,” he said, “you are not writing it. You are just filling it out.”
I accepted the compromise he offered, filled out the letter and returned home.