Daily Times

A big silver paandan with a dome-shaped top having a few inches peaking summit, sitting on a wooden throne-like takht with round pillows, had always been a centre of attraction for my little sister and me. We never missed an opportunity to graze on the goodies in that beautiful betel leaves container that my late parents entertained through their lives.

The paandan had not only been the source of paan chewing but served as a roundtable to resolve all domestic issues and also an efficient first aid box. As an adventurous thrill seeking child, cuts, bruises, boils and burns were an everyday affair, which the paandan relieved with quick remedies without fail.

With the sad demise of my parents, the paandan slipped down into the hands of my paan chewing big brothers. And with the passage of time, it broke down rested somewhere in the pantry. It gradually found its way into a silversmith’s little foundry to transform into beautiful jewellery, but not as elegant as the original paandan had been.

The paandan culture has almost become extinct in the Pakistani society, gradually being replaced by paan shops in every street corner across the country, selling a variety of hazardous stuff along with the paan to multiplying herds of mindless grass chewing two-legged hostile creatures. The paan might have retained the same flavour, but it certainly lacks the whole culture of eastern circumlocutory teachings in civility, humanity and about our own self.

The prevailing new paan culture in Pakistan might be a regeneration, but, for me, it is instead a degeneration, as it lacks Lucknow reminiscence and those deep-thought teachings the ‘Lucknowi’ finness, the beautiful tradition of the culture of discipline and respect that we grew up with.

For me that paandan had sever as a ‘sensei’ (revered teacher in Japanese), with all its attractive sweet and sour fragrant goodies that linked the enchanting stories of our forefathers from the past with concealed teachings into humility, politeness, mannerism, culture, tolerance, interfaith harmony, and knowing ours and respecting others physical and psychological parameters.

It seems that the core of whatever little human I am left with inside has been carved out from those lessons — the inheritance I am trying to pass it down to my son. However, the task that reeled out so smoothly as a silk thread in the past had never been that easy for me amid the flood of all kinds of distractions.

The paan might have retained the same flavour,but it certainly lacks the whole culture of eastern circumlocutory teachings in civility, humanity and about our own self

Luckily, during an international conference, a gracious scholar from the other-side of the fence gifted me a typical Luckhnowi kurta-pajama suite to make my Eid away from home. And, nobody could tell whether I was from this side or that side of the border, culturally, of course. In the global village, it is the region that tunes identities. Not only we share the same DNA, but the culture and values as well, which are the great binding forces that rise above all spectrums of hate mantras, like the noble silvery summit of the lost paandan. That too amid a rowdy political attitude that wipes away the hard-earned confidence-building measures whenever strategic priorities need to prevail!

The line is blurred that divides people on the basis of beliefs that are rarely practised and the politico-strategic agenda which is held supreme. It has hijacked sanity and tempered perceptions, splitting humanity to overpower man-over-matter with matter-over-man. Alas, the humanity has gone to dogs… I wish the old tradition of tolerance and mutual respect can be revived to create a win-win situation for all! That’s all a whistleblower may suggest.

The writer is senior journalist and former Political Affairs Advisor to the US Consulate General in Karachi

Published in Daily Times, February 1^st 2018.