Picture Courtesy The News
This Was First Published at The News Tribe Blogs:
This past Friday I was getting late to reach to reach the mosque for Friday prayer, this is quite usual for me to be late for that. However, ever since I am here in UK, getting late creates a lot of problem because prayer can be skipped and, because there are only a few mosques in the city they get over capacity and one cannot find a place to offer his prayer. Let me share you some facts about Newport (Gwent) there are total nine mosques in Gwent including the imam bargahs, two of them have Pakistani administrations and I normally visit these two places because they are nearer to my place.
As I was saying that, I got late that day and I was more than sure that it would be hard for me to find place in the mosque, so I made my way to the Shah Poran Bangladeshi Jame Mosque. This mosque has Bangladeshi management and it has capacity for 800 worshippers.
Because of the history, I have some emotional attachment to Bangladesh, just because it has been a part of Pakistan for years and another reason is the accounts that I have heard from my grandfather who was posted in East Pakistan (Bangladesh). Feeling of happiness was there as I made to the mosque in time and I was happy that I would not be missing or skipping prayer. There was enough space in the hall and picked a place to sit and offer the prayer. The sermon and the Dua (pray) after the collective prayer was in Bengali language. I found it easier to understand, as mostly the needs are the same that we want our God to help us with.
According to my observation, I was one of the very few Pakistanis in that hall as there were three or four Pakistanis in that hall. Offered the prayer and came out of the mosque, this life has become purposelessly busy and this busy life did not allowed me to start or have some conversation with Bengalis there.
I never had a friend from Bangladesh and I wanted to make one, I did not had chat with anyone there because I wanted to avoid the question that one student at my university from Bangladesh asked me after conforming if I am from Pakistan. The question was, “so do you think that separation of both wings of Pakistan was right?”
With all the regret and murk of sad feelings of East Pakistan fall my reply was a question itself, “are you happy today”. When the word “yes” hit my eardrum I said, “in that case it was right”. That day I replied that question and realised that I will be facing the same question again if I meet someone from that part of the world may be because there is still some kind of kinship between some Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. Even after the separation, the connection is there that made them to ask this question just to know if there has been some change in our opinion or attitude. The fact remains that to some extent, they share the same past the versions and editions of the past might be different.
The atmosphere of the mosque was just like a mosque should have; welcoming. I spent my time there and came out. I was a complete stranger for the people there and they were strangers for me no one asked me anything but still I came out of the mosque with the head down and neck heavy with the burden of history.
Why East Pakistan became Bangladesh is not a mystery anymore, there were some mistakes at every end and no one came forward to apologise for those. Mistakes, misdeeds, and arrogance resulted in what I experienced there, psychologically, in that mosque I was a Pakistani there and others were Bangladeshi this division, which is the result of the hate born and brought up in the minds of people of that part of the country back then.
No matter it is nation or an individual, the progress meet them only when they learn from the historical mistakes and apologise the history for making those mistakes. In all those thirty years, neither we have said sorry nor we have learned anything the proof of that is the current state of Baluchistan.
Whatever we have done wrong to the Bengalis, I feel sorry for that all, and I want to say, “I am really sorry for what happened”. I think it might be late but still there is time for us that we should say sorry to the past and specially the past that brought the year of 1971 in our history.
P.S: This piece was written in July after many tries it could not be published earlier for some reason. today on 16th December I am publishing it. Now there are two Mosques in the city with Bangladeshi management. In fact I am the regular visitor to the New mosque as it is near to my place. And yeah still I am scared of that question tough no one asked it.
