Naushad from Morocco

It was in the winter of 1997 I reached Prien am Chiemsee, a small town in the Bavarian region of Germany. This was my first trip outside India [I believe we consider Nepal as an illegal extension of India] and that to, to a country where they speak in a strange language as if they are having a fight.
Prien has a small centre for learning German language, at that time was run by Frau Rothkirch. The institute bears her name – Language Institute Von Rothkirch.
All people who were coming to Germany for the first time, from different part of the world and working for different divisions of Siemens AG, had to spend at least one month for learning the basics of the language.
It also served as a melting pot of diverse cultures and getting to know them.
Prien had a very elderly population. The old couples, mostly retired and living alone, rented their house to the students. It also helped the students in picking up German faster as they hardly spoke anything but German, that to countryside German [Bayerisches Deutsch].
I was allotted a room with a lady called Frau Neumann. There were two rooms in the attic and I was told to choose one.
She told me that the next room was booked for a gentleman from Pakistan [although I was expecting a lady from Russia]. It gave me a subtle pleasure that at least I would not spent hours talking in English or broken German. On the other hand it was also the first time I would meet a Pakistani – flesh and blood. The 1993 Mumbai bomb blast was still fresh and the word Pakistani did not evoke much camaraderie in my mind.
Naushad Alam checked in around four in the afternoon. He was very thin [I found out when he removed his warm clothes], around the same height as mine, bespectacled and I could feel him shivering beneath the layer of three coats that he was wearing and in spite of the heater turned full on.
We shook hands, introduced each other in English and then he went to his room to get fresh and change.
He came back to my room, looking a bit fresh but I could feel that he was a bit scared. I made him a cup of tea and offered him some biscuits.
He sat there in the bed, palms crossed between his legs, shivering in pulses. He seemed as innocent as a terrorist.
He was from Karachi and had joined Siemens only a year back. He has never travelled outside Karachi, leave aside being abroad. His chance came by proxy as the person who was originally scheduled to come fell sick. In a short notice he had to make arrangements, like getting his passport and then visa, buying warm clothes, food items, pressure cooker, pulses etc. He paid almost the same amount as his ticket fare in excess baggage and it was only a miracle how he lifted his stuff alone on the second floor of the building.
He was so shy that he refused to lift his face up while speaking to me. I felt a little disconcerting but carried on the conversation. Naushad spoke in a very soft voice, as if he has not yet reached his puberty.
“It is so stupid that in spite of being neighboring countries we are speaking in English.” said Naushad.
“Yes, but as per rules we should be speaking German. By the way what language do you speak?”
“I speak Urdu only, and you?”
“I speak Bengali, the language they speak in erstwhile East Pakistan and a bit of Hindi.”
“No, I do not understand any of the languages.”
“But Hindi is not that different from Urdu, except for the script.”
“Maybe, but I have never heard the language. But I heard that many in India speak Urdu.”
“Yes, maybe in the erstwhile princely state of Hyderabad and Lucknow.”
“Ah! Hyderabad, which was invaded by the Indian army and forcefully annexed it to the Indian state.”
I was totally foxed by his statement, Hyderabad – attacked by Indian Army – annexed. It was a total spin and I was left flabbergasted.
“Your army also invaded Goa and more so many people got killed, India was acting fascist at that time.”
We were sitting and having our discussion in a country which has a history of Fascism about forty years back, but no one has dared call India fascist.
“And what you did in Nagaland, killing the tribal, just because they refused to be a part of the Indian state and demanded their freedom. Their leader Phizo was exiled and continued the fight from England.”
“Excuse me, Phizo who?” I was almost sweating.

The soft spoken, gentle Pakistani was telling me the history of my own country which I was totally unaware off or was it a Pakistani propaganda.
I told him that I need to go out and make a call to my family. I rushed to the nearest telephone booth and called my father and asked in sequence what Naushad had told me. It was a part of history post independence and who in the world of our age cared about history.

But some countries do like Pakistan. When you want to inflict hatred against someone a counter productive history comes handy.
You obfuscate a part of it, mould it to suit your goals and brainwash the people. Pakistan had no history – a country only forty years old and having a series of leadership change, junta rules, and a country born on the principle of hatred cannot have a history.

Few days later, when we realized that I can understand his Urdu and he can somehow understand my Hindi [which he kept on arguing was Urdu, but the fascist Indian government gave a new name] I had asked him about his roots.
He thought for a moment and then he said with a smile,” We are decedents of a business family from Morocco, who came to make is fortune in Afghanistan and later settled in Karachi after Pakistan was formed.”
Naushad Alam would never even have a shadow of India cross his frame.