Aftab S. Alam Says:

May 6th, 2008
Shah Sahab,

Would the following be our dream?

Mind Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up
into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason
has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action—

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

RABINDRANATH TAGORE’S - GITANJALI - “Song Offerings”

Kalpana chawla,Sunitha williams,Indira Nooyi,Lakshmi Mittal , BobbyJindal etc.
and Amitava Kumar, Amitav Ghosh, Prof. A. Sen, Prof. Akbar S. Ahmad, Prof H. Haqqani, Sarah Sulehri, Ayesha Jajal, Fred Hasan, Ramchandar, Javed Burki, Moeen Qureshi, Shaukat Aziz, Hanif Kureshi, and many I don’t know or can recall at this time. I personally would want my people judged by this standard rather than Lalloos, Sharifs, Zias, Rehmans, and many many such chracters.

Now, you have almost made it sound like as if anyone who has decided to be what is known as Non-Resident-Pakistani / Indian / Bangladeshi automatically must cease to look at the motherland with love and affection or totally break all relationships with the compatriots. How can it be humanly possible? History is witness to the fact that other immigrants before from this region continued their relationship with the country of their origin.

Yes, it is true that such people do tend to criticise their, lets continue calling, motherlands for its shortcomings; but I honestly think it is not due to some complexes but mere human envy. You know, when you are expose to better way of managing day to day affairs of public life (the public administration, the educational system, the health care, the law and order etc. etc. etc and of course the prevailing CORRUPTION at every level) one perhaps feels that why this is not possible at home, after all the others are jus as human beings as we are. Their frustration might manifest itself in some bitterness, I don’t know.

My extensive travelling and at times extended stay in the West has really been fantastic experience and I am, in all honesty, constraint to disagree with you that there is any lack of respect for these NRI / NRP / NRB in the West. Believe me, out there the basic standard of respect is not due to your economic starta (by the way generally our NRs have progressed reasonably well up the economic ladder and are recognized even for this achievement), usually you earn respect of the society by how you conduct yourself (whether or not you have been convicted in certain felonies etc) and it is my impression based on my keen observation that generally this is not a problem the NRs face out in the countries of their settlements.

As far as calling the corrupt politicians what they call is not much different than the rest of the resident nationals do, is there? I mean Lallo Pashad or Khalida Zia, or Nawaz Sharif or whatever. stories about their corruption and their general attitude towards the populace is beyond any admiration for anyone, of course, including the “NRs”.

Am I too far from you over here?

These can be called the confused million’s. But i think their 3rd Generation will completly integrate with the US systems, and we will see ROBIN SINGH”S AND MAX CHAUDRIES etc