To the utter dismay of a few quintessential lamenters with liberal leanings in our midst, we were successful in ending the event on a rather hopeful note. The event: a launch of books by Lynette Viccaji and Mobeen Ansari to mark Pakistan Day last week at Kuch Khaas, an independent centre for promoting art, culture and dialogue in Islamabad, founded by the late Shayan Afzal Khan (Poppy). The reason it was possible was mainly because of Lynette Viccaji’s sheer vivacity and Mobeen Ansari’s cautious optimism when speaking about their work and responding to questions about diversity, inclusion, pluralism and minority rights in Pakistan.

Viccaji’s Made in Pakistan is a memoir spanning her childhood, youth and adult life. Ansari’s White in the Flag: A Promise Forgotten is a collection of photographs with detailed captions where needed. The title of this book refers to the white band in the Pakistani flag which represents religious minorities. Viccaji is an Anglo-Indian Karachiite Christian while Ansari is — what we call in Rawalpindi and Islamabad — a proud Pindi boy. He is Muslim. What connects the two is their theme: the past and present living experience of non-Muslim Pakistanis.

Unlike what one would expect from the writing of someone belonging to the Christian community — that has seen discrimination towards, and oppression of, its members increase massively over time in our country — Viccaji’s memoir deals with the situation very differently. It is full of wit, satire, confidence and courage. She is fully aware of the monstrosity that we have cultivated in our society, but takes it with a subtle sureness as if she is convinced that it is a passing phase. Her confidence comes from a deep sense of belonging to Pakistan and she says that her love for the country is not unrequited. She lays full claim on her land and its people and admonishes those who tend to ghettoise themselves.

She equally cherishes writing about her family, friends, community and its hybridity, the dissimilar neighbourhoods of Karachi, her school days and university times, marriage with someone of the Zoroastrian faith and the bonding with him that ensued, and the few years she spent in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Her contagious humour and finely controlled relating of personal experiences make this book thoroughly accessible. It brings back the cosmopolitanism of Karachi in particular and Pakistan in general that we enjoyed until a few decades ago. But Viccaji’s tone is celebratory, not nostalgic. She celebrates her life and her past to the full and refuses to give up on our collective future. In doing so, she rejoices in the good times Karachi has seen. She does miss her friends and relations — mostly of the Christian faith who left Pakistan because of the absence of promise their motherland once offered to them or their children. But she will stay back out of her own informed choice.

Ansari, who is half as old as Viccaji, told the audience at the Kuch Khaas event that he shares Viccaji’s sense of belonging to a diverse and colourful Pakistan. He said things have certainly gone from bad to worse as far as the fragmentation on religious and sectarian lines is concerned, but travelling across the country and interacting with common people in small towns and villages brings back this hope that our desire for the respectful acceptance of different faiths and communities can eventually be fulfilled. The photographs in Ansari’s collection include churches, synagogues, temples, gurdwaras, graveyards and tombstones. He captures diversity by taking varied pictures, from the observance of rituals and festivals, to people casually playing cards and games. His portraits are particularly powerful.

Towards the end of Made in Pakistan, Viccaji writes about her children — Cyrus, Rachel and Zoe. Recounting their achievements, she says: “They are more fully ‘Pakistani’ than Adi [her husband] or I will ever be.” But then she quickly ends her narrative by saying: “Scratch the last sentence. It reeks of the mania for ‘identity’, and identity is too narrow a word.”

The writer is a poet and essayist based in Islamabad

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, April 1st, 2018