Riddle: The picture above is of a Sub Continental favourite cuisine called “Biryani”. A fully loaded spicy plate of this confluence of aroma, meat and rice is a thing of dreams for the locals of India and Pakistan. So here’s the question, what’s the nationality of this dish? Indian or Pakistani?
…and what would you call more than a billion people who mostly speak the same language, have the same cuisine, listen to the same music, watch the same movies, play the same sport and even have common festivals? Do you have any idea what to call these people? I don’t, I seriously do not. You see I come from a funny part of the world where we have somehow lost our sense of direction. I have lived in Nigeria, the US and have been residing in the UAE for the past 22 years. This basically means that I have lived most of my life away from my country of birth. I will get to the point where this article is leading towards………..
Ladies and Gentlemen, I am from Pakistan. In Nigeria, one of my hangouts used to be with Ajay and Rakesh, both from India. In the US we would jam our study nights and burn the midnight oil with Ravi Chotani, Henry Gonzales and Vivek Arora, In Dubai, my good buddies have been Rahul Bakshi, Raju Sadhwani, Deepak Singh and many more. My Ophthalmologist is Dr Prashat Bhatia, the most considerate and professional eye surgeon that you can ever come across; I had allowed him twice to operate on my eyes……………I am getting to the point so please be patient. I have and had many Indian neighbours during my stay in Dubai during all these years with whom we spent memorable days. There is Gaurav Rastogi in Germany who was my colleague in Siemens for 10 years and we are still in touch. If I get on to the list then I can blacken 200 pages with names and details of friends, colleagues and acquaintances that I have interacted with. They have been Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Zoroastrian and it really never mattered; we lived as neighbours, worked as colleagues and interacted as customers and suppliers; our nationalities or religion never played any part in the professional setup.
Now here’s what I wanted to get to in this article; we should understand that in the new economy we transcend all boundaries, this is an open forum now and its up to us how to utilize its force. Recently I’ve been noticing a violent upsurge in diatribes and critically rash comments on LinkedIn from professionals on both sides of the physical border. It's amazing how we do not realize that we do not operate in a hidden environment, the whole world is watching us and this sort of communication would disturb a beautiful but fragile equilibrium that exists between the two nations beyond their borders. So here’s my take and its purely up to us to play by the rules or spoil the show, the show of progress:
- There are no boundaries after the introduction of social media so let's work together for the common good of the subcontinent and the whole world.
- Together we are a backbone of so many regional economies, just look around.
- The strength of a chain is measured by its weakest link. Our weakest link is the constant bickering and now it has even crept on professional social websites.
- Have the courage to have a positive debate if we are unable to control our urge for an argument rather than making an online circus.
- Use the power of social media to discuss the various challenges eating away our environment and future generations.
- Most important of all is to teach our youth the beauty of mutual respect and existence. If we can stay and work peacefully away from the physical borders then we can do the same when we are right next to each other.
- Our words and actions disturb and are creating ripples thousands of miles away in distant lands without our knowledge. An irresponsible comment on social media is more dangerous than the most lethal weapon.
If my message is able to get across only one person then I would consider it as a major achievement. I hope that we would avoid using LinkedIn or any other media to abuse or insult each other becoming a laughing stock for the whole world.
The author can be contacted at masomo@eim.ae and tweets @kazinajibashraf
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
