“Life in Pakistan is similar to any other developing country” : पाकिस्तान में सामान्य जनजीवन – आदित्य कॉल

“Life in Pakistan is similar to any other developing country”
It’s surprising how media makes us believe otherwise!
But a wonderful place indeed.

Minorities’s life sucks in Pakistan. I’ve interacted with a Sikh Shopkeeper and he’d admit that they live in a constant fear of being followed or their daughters being kidnapped and raped what not. Let alone women even men aren’t safe. On the contrary Muslims in India enjoy a far better life. In fact they are blessed with special privileges unlike Hindu’s for the sake of vote banks. One of the reasons why you see 3 Khans dominating Bollywood! Neither do Hindu’s share any hostile attitude towards Indian Muslims in any manner whatsoever.  However in Pakistani cities, like Karachi it’s seen Hindu’s and Muslim’s happily coexisting. Minority community issue is not problem at Surface level at all. It’s deep rooted.

What I liked about Pakistan?
Their people. And the amazing hospitality on offer. Specially at Lahore. The kind of hospitality they show is unmatched by Indians. We are a bunch of  people mostly trying to act sophisticated and western but failing miserably on most occasions. Most of us lack originality and kindness. Also we are moving away from our cultural roots as we approach greater amount on Independence. Pakistani’s are largely family oriented and stuck to their roots. Though we are evolving as a culture gradually and that’s good.
Also contrarian to our viewpoint an average educated Pakistani respects Indians more than we Indians do. I mean it.
Why? Because exposure.

We Indians in our history textbooks are taught in a provoking manner about Pakistan. Pakistan does the same too. We end up believing all the negative sides since we’re never shown the brighter side. Also with lack of popularity of their cinema etc Indians don’t get the exposure to know their neighbors. So most end up believing self made assumptions that Pakistan is a miserable place to live.
While in Pakistan, there are plenty who blatantly hate more so for the politicians but the common people are loving and  caring. No matter how much you say Bollywood dosen’t make any sense  but it does succeed in giving them a vague Idea about how India actually is. The sensible movies does depict our Indianess and is not a escape from reality.

Liberalism:  In Pakistan “Liberal” is a dirty word generally. In India contemplating yourself as “liberal” has become a fashion trend. While North East part  indeed boasts of a liberal culture handing their women greater amount of independence but India’s largest states Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh , Bihar, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh are pretty similar to worser than Pakistani metros in this regard. 
If comparing Delhi/Mumbai/Pune/Bangalore/Hyderabad/Surat and others to Karachi/Islamabad then it’s absolute that these cities is light years ahead.

• The talk: Any sort of liberal talk will fetch you prying eyes even from the upper section of the society. “Sexuality” is a taboo subject just like in India. The difference being it’s no more a taboo for upper class of the Indian society at surface level. At least not in Mumbai/Pune/Delhi. I assure you that.

• Liberalists: Many pseudo liberalists exist in Pakistan as well. Unlike India they don’t get their desired mileage. You need support structure to validate collective data points which thankfully dosen’t lack here much.

• Religious intolerance: Liberalism is thrown out of the window when you acknowledge this issue. It’s one of those which is responsible for crippling Pakistan’s progress. Veena Malik shows cleavage and everyone loses their minds. Here Sunny Leone becomes a actor gets few cuss words in YouTube comments or a single FIR which dosen’t hold any value.

• Freedom of expression:  People take the word “Islam” and most jump into the bandwagon of blind following and suppression of freedom of expression. A reason why YouTube is banned. You don’t really receive external or earth cracking social media support either.
  Here we had “All India Bakchod” hosting a Roast event. Many got offended.  Some filed FIR but were paid no heed at all. AIB carried out the event with all the celebrities quite peacefully. In whole of Pakistan an event like AIB Roast simply can’t be executed. All though they have their own stand up comedy events at Lahore. And they’re cool but not offensive 😀

My sister was advised against wearing shorts by hotel advisory in one of the most Urban areas. She bought a Salwar Kameez there. While shorts invite intense stares but traditional clothes invite hospitality! Beat that. Many of them tend to think that by wearing their clothes we’re giving them due respect which we do anyway and this makes many of them more hospitable to us.

Tourism:

Pakistan has huge potential in this regard. Pakistan’s Tourism is underrated.
As of now India stands ahead with variety of places like Goa, Lakshwadeep Kerala Leh Halflong.

Mind you it’s not photo shopped! The Aggati looks more surreal from flight, than shown in this picture. It’s stunning.
North Pakistan is mind blowing specially Abbottabad. Similarly there are cool seashores at Karachi as well. But the northern regions being messed up due to extremists they’re quite off the mark. Still stunning!

Abottabad. North Pakistan is gifted with looks!

Poverty:

In Pakistan the median range of income is not quite high but required  necessities are often cheap. Food is ridiculously cheap at Lahore. Nonetheless they have their own share of filthy riches as well.
On the brighter side their economic disparity is not bad as us probably. At least they don’t have an Antilla & Mannat or Monorail and Metro and huge slums/chawls in the same city. The sight of monorail running over slums is nothing but a slay of pain.

Mumbai Slums
Both the countries have slums. Bombay being Asia’s highest I suppose. India is an epitome example of how the super rich and dead poor coexist. Mukesh Ambani’s Antilla and Slums nearby. Reached mars on one side, someone’s dying on the other part of country. Huh. Need I say more?

Education:

Much cheap compared to India. Private sector is not that expensive as well. Fees in our Manipal University can blow anyone’s mind with it’s astronomically high fees. The college from where present Microsoft CEO graduated. I’ve visited University of Engineering and Technology. The IIT of Pakistan! Though it looks much similar to India’s premiere “Aligarh Muslims University” than an IIT. Apart from that dedicated technological institution’s of such high stature look to be fewer than in India. The reason being lesser demand.

Food:

Ridiculously cheap. Incredibly Tasty.

Lahore Food street: This place demands a visit. Worth it!

Monumental Heritage:

Badshahi Mosque, Lahore.
Both countries are comparable. In Pakistan there’s lot of heritage to set your eyes on. However India has a larger variety which is more appealing in the form that you have it all here, from Buddhist establishments, Mosques, Churches, Hindu Temples ranging from ISKON to Dakhineshwar and obviously Mughal heritage. Diversity is Incredible.

Mighty Taj Mahal.

Safety:

In Pakistan it varies but generally not safe. Similar to many parts of India’s backward states. But in India’s rural areas the situation of minorities is far better. Islamabad and Lahore are relatively safe much like New Delhi. Lahore is safest perhaps. While India’s North East is highly safe and southern part generally has limited safety issues.
Gender segregation is highly prevalent in Pakistan.Which is not really the case in India. Much frustrated young men have made it a regular habit of groping females in public places just like Indian monsters.
If you are a lady you have this privilege that a single scream will bring almost all the men in your surroundings by your side. They might even beat the shit out of the offender even if it’s a mere allegation on the lady’s part.  I’m not sure if this is case also in Pakistan.

If you’re a women in Pakistan almost at every occasion you need to be accompanied by your Papa or Bhaiya. I’m unaware of the dynamics behind it though. People there have actually accepted this way of living and girls are not agiated at all instead they find it “Normal” which I don’t. In Indian metropolis’s women face no such prejudices generally. Quite Independent. We see both genders at ease roaming in mid night at Marine drive! Believe it or not India is moving towards being a progressive society.  Is India really changing?

Politics:

Mutually exclusive! We both criticize our politicians on a regular basis. Both are equally corrupt. Scams, money laundering you name it. Almost everything is common.

Pakistan’s Parliament.
However ever wondered amidst all the criticism of politicians?  If they really did, India would’ve been Bangladesh’s puppet by now. Decisions are made not by direct mandates by ministers but by huge external mobilization. At the end of the day they do their job up to the mark of handling this big population in a developing nation with rising economy and strong educational institutions . We are still better than most part of the world (and not only Pakistan) in nurturing and growing our democracy, and in a continuous process of giving equal rights to all sections of society and equal participation in system, which is growing day by day.

Indian Parliament
No matter how much joke we’ve made out of our democracy a democratic country handles itself much better.
India’s central government makes sense but is often paralyzed by some senseless state governments.

Economy:

Since Pakistan is smaller than us, we should only talk on % age parameters, and in that we have a bigger % age of population working in corporate, IT, Media etc. and we have a growing upper middle class generating more and more purchasing power, and then economy is stably growing, our exports are increasing, so as our share in world trade.  The percentage of poor in Pakistan stands at 22 percent while 27 percent for a country twice as large, India.

Gurgaon Skyline. Mumbai Skyline looks even better! Pseudo-New York!

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General Infrastructure/Amenities

1. Water: Quality is  decent enough  urbanized areas. Otherwise they’re infected with Parasites. There seems to be a shortage in water similar to Northern India. Rest of us excluding North, don’t really have to deal with water issues.
2. Power supply is a major issue at Pakistan and surprisingly in big cities . For instance, Karachi. Here I haven’t encountered long haul power cuts since a long time. Though not the same rosy scenario in every parts of India quite obviously.
3. Lack of model towns with booming jobs: You seldom come across planned satellite cities/areas like Navi Mumbai or Jubilee hills, UB city or NCR.  Companies like Google don’t have any campus there.
4. Infrastructure: The overall infrastructure is not up to the mark e mark considering international parameters. We are lagging behind too but we have both worlds of rich and poor coexisting. Infra where required is considerably up to the mark. Islamabad is one beautiful city. Karachi is good at Infra level but Islamabad’s quiet nature with beautiful mountains overlooking is fantastic.

Bandra-Worli Sea link! This place looks nothing short of Europe.

• Entertainment  options: In Pakistan there are lots of opportunities to give yourself the pleasure of luxury but you need an exorbitant sum of money which most look unlikely to afford. In Indian metropolis the entertainment options are huge. Specially for Mumbai, Delhi ,Gurgaon Bangalore. You are sure to have fun even if you’re from the average middle class category.
• IT hubs: They don’t have dedicated massive IT hubs unlike India. They do consist Tech parks though. This causes the unemployment rate to soar much higher. It’s not uncommon to come across skilled people in jobs not their worth. In India most unemployed simply lack skills hence the jobs. This is also a major reason why there aren’t so many Engineers like in India. Oh wait here we decide our career after engineering!

Transport

Railways and metro system in India by the virtue of network is one of the better one’s in world. We have issues regarding quality maintenance of passenger trains though but the network helps the country to function more efficiently.
What’s Unique here? Mono rail and Multiple Metro systems across 7 cities and Kolkata’s TRAM.

Mumbai Monorail! Even Pune’s Mono-Rail is upcoming 🙂

Smart city. 🙂 Mumbai.

Inside:Delhi Metro
Though Mumbai Metro is much better. And up coming metro’s of which some line’s have already started functioning at multiple other cities are more sophisticated. For instance, Delhi metro is supposed to start it’s new breed of unmanned metro from next fiscal year.

Kolkata Tram system, is old. However it’s still fascinating for obvious reasons.

Indian Railways

Indian Railways (reporting mark IR / भा. रे) is an Indian state-ownedenterprise, owned and operated by the Government of India through theMinistry of Railways. It is one of the world’s largest railway networks comprising 115,000 km (71,000 mi) of track over a route of 65,436 km (40,660 mi) and 7,172 stations.[4]

Indian Railways is the world’s seventh largest commercial or utility employer, by number of employees, with over 1.307 million employees as of last published figures in 2013 . As for rolling stock, IR holds over 239,281 Freight Wagons, 62,924 Passenger Coaches and 9,013 Locomotives (43 steam, 5,345 diesel and 4,568 electric locomotives).

Pir Panjal tunnel for Railways.
Jammu and Kashmir, India

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Pakistan Railways:

Pakistan Railways (reporting mark PR) (Urdu: پاکستان ریلویز ‎), formerly also known as the Pakistan Western Railway (reporting mark PWR) between 1947 to 1974, is the a national state-owned railway company of Pakistan. Founded in 1886 and headquartered in Lahore, it owns approximately 4,800 miles (7,791 km) of track all across Pakistan, stretching from Torkham to Karachi.

Bolan express. Looks majestic indeed.

Too stunning!

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Unity in diversity – Way more than what Pakistanis could ever imagine, I know Kashmir (which is more of an issue created by Pakistan only, and now the issue is almost dead), rest of India despite so many hundreds of languages, religions, regions, food habits, complexions, races and all have equal craze for the nation; and we hardly conflict with each other in real life.

On the other side,  look at Pakistan – Sindhi’s (Especially Karachi), Punjabi’s (dominant as 70 % of total country), Baloochs (internal conflict – armed one!) are yet to become Pakistanis as one generally. And then, even being a religious state – they have a lot of differences between hardliners, armed hardliners, modern thinkers, liberals and so on; India too has such debates but not armed one, though Maoism (armed) is a pain in ass for us as well, but it is a class struggle inside a nation and not against nation.

Road Infrastructure:

Comparable.  India’s cities, satellite towns, massive IT hubs edge past Pakistan in this regard, but other than top notch cities and NH’s rest are all the same. However in my opinion, in sophistication aspect India looks ahead and in terms of number of decently motor able roads, Pakistan looks better. The assumption is evident if you compare Karachi and Mumbai.

Kathipara Flyover: Chennai India

Islamabad!
It’s a quiet & beautiful city. A well planned one and blessed with natural wonders. The mountains overlooking the city is wonderful. India‘s Chandigarh + Pune= Islamabad. 
Summary: There’s a saying “Incredible India” . If you manage to visit different parts of the country there’s no need to visit Pakistan at all. However Pakistan deserves a visit as well. And it’s worth exploring their homogeneity, culture, food etc. It will erase the media created false image you have.