A Pakistani

Early July on a beautiful sunny afternoon this man hurriedly hops down the stairs of the Gloucester Road tube station to catch the 3:00 pm from Paddington to south west.

“…Has been a hectic day starting at 5:00 in the morning , missed my breakfast and then this 4 hour hard-nosed negotiations with this wretched partner …” thinks the man. I just want to be home was the thought lingering in his mind when a sudden polite voice with a thick Punjabi accent asks “does this route go to Paddington? “

The man turns around to see a 5.9 inch tall woman with a pleasant demeanour dressed in shalwar kameez holding a bottle of water and a file holder in her hand.

The man nodds and smiles. The woman looks away anxiously wiping her forehead with the back of her hand.

The man hesitantly asks “aap ghumne aayi hain?”, the woman turns around nods in the negative, the man with inquisitiveness asks “aap india se ho?” , the woman replies , “nahin Pakistan se”. The man stood there for a while waiting for the next train and curious and eager to help this nervous looking lady asks “aap nayi lagti hain, koi madat ho sake mujhse to bataeyega” she looks back over her shoulder and smiles gently.

The train arrives and she sits beside this man and both start staring at the roof of the carriage aimlessly. The train starts to gather pace and the man looks at the woman and says “umeed karta hun ke aap ko yeh jagah pasand aa rahi hai, hamare watan se thodi mukhtalif hai”.. she looks at him smiles gently and says “aap ki urdu bahut gehri hai”.. ..the man smiles and nods and realising that this woman was in some sort of problem says, “aap koi pareshani mein hon to es watan mein mukhtalif aasrein hain aap ki madat ke liye, aur fauri nataeej dila saktein hain aapko”.. she looks at this man with some assurance and says “meri shaadi karab ho gayi hai”.

Turns out this woman in her mid-twenties is an MBA graduate in marketing from Lahore and got married to a well to do man settled in the UK eight months ago. She was treated horribly and was 1.5 months pregnant. She one day decided that enough was enough and just got out of the house with a handbag and the clothes she was wearing. Now she was on her way back to one of her known’s after a trip to the Pakistani embassy.

What she had just done in a foreign land just amazed this man. The strength of character that was obvious was just captivating. When morning sickness and lethargy would sap you she had just been out of her house for 4 days and had on her own represented her case to the Embassy and convinced them to buy her a ticket to her homeland. The man thought to himself, ..”she is a citizen of a country that some of us like to hate”.. and, yet she represented the culture the manners and the will that would give most of our Indian women the run for their money.

This woman epitomised the strength of a woman in every word. The man could not but respect the strength of character. She had no fear in her eyes and a steely determination in herself to go back to her parents and bring her child up on her own, and I can promise you no one could change her stance.

The train crawls into Paddington and they both come out. She asks the man when the train would arrive and the man replies, in 15 minutes, platform number 3. She was going to get off one stop before this man. The man asks, “aap ne England mein kya kya dekha?”, the woman answers simply “Southall”, the man bursts out in laughter ..”baas”, “jee” replies the woman. “Appne London mein kuch bhi nahin dekhi” .. “jee nahin” says the woman.

The man stands next to the woman waiting for the train and wondering how to suggest that she needs to upgrade her ticket to travel in peak time as she was carrying an off-peak train ticket that would leve Paddington only after 06:15.

The man hesitantly says, “aapko Ticket upgrade karani padegi, nahin to aap ko wait karma padega , till 06:15”... “Jee?” Quips the woman. “Jee haan”…. “Kitne paise lagenge”.. aap uski parwah naa karein.. says the man realising there is no way she could shell out £50.00 extra. She absolutely refuses to let this man upgrade her ticket and the man could guess she did not have any money. Turns out this proud woman had not even had a morsel of food since the morning. The man is just taken over by the cruelty of her plight. He says, “main aapke saath rahunga, aur 06:15 ki train ekatthe pakdenge”..the woman almost in regret says, “aap meri chinta naa Karen , aap jayen , main pahunch jaaongi”. The man refuses and steadfastly stays back.

Slowly she starts to look for a place to sit as she was worn out. After, a lot of insistence the woman agrees to eat the banana that the man had not been able to eat after getting out of his meeting.

This man, standing next to her thinks “this woman has had a hell of a time in England, with absolutely no one to look after her in this foreign country and, she has not once let go off her pride and values.. this is quite a woman standing next to me”. She was from a quite a good family that was obvious by her manners and she had a steely determination in her looks. The man springs on a thought that crossed his mind …I will try to give her some good memories of England at least. The man looks at her and says “aapne Tower bridge ka naam suna hai?”, the woman says “jee, tasveeron mein bhi dekhi hai, bahut khoobsoorat hai”, “aapne hakikat mein dekhni hai?”, she was almost child-like at that thought, “jee munasib nahin hogi, wakt kaam hai”.. the man said, “aap waqt ki parwah naa karein, who aab apke liye achchi hone wali hai”… “aap bas chalein. .. agar mujhpe bharosa kar sakti hain”. She after a bit of persuasion agreed for the man to buy her the tickets and off they went.

The woman was absolutely amazed to see some of London’s most toured places and the way she was admiring them was a treat to the man’s wishes. “Atleast I could do something for this woman”…”atleast I could make her happy … for a while”. She absolutely enjoyed every moment of those 2 hours, and at the end of it sat quietly beside the Thames and looked at the man and very innocently said to the man …”aap bahut ache insaan hain…” and smiled. The man said “..aap ise ek ek Hindustani ka tohfa samjheeyega”.. she smiled and nodded.