Even the fabled Stoics of 3rd century B.C would not have able to uncouth this emotion, this joy, this unmatched fanatism. Nothing unites Koshur nation more, than a Pakistan victory in cricket. And do I dare ask, why? The answers are easy and in millions. Born in a family where cricket was treated as a religion, I grew up to the stories of Zaheer Abbas and Asif Iqbals. Every event in Pakistan's diminutive history had a narrative, either through my Grandfather or my father. From last ball six, '87 test series, the '82 Imran Khan heroics, Zaheer Abbas's decimation of B Bedi, Majid Khan's tearing a leather ball to Fazal Mehmood's dapper looks; the whole enchilada was discussed over and over again. Jinnah was our leader, the saviour.
One very funny incident from my fathers childhood my grandfather used to narrate often. It so happened that in early 60s my grandfather had an official trip to a border post somewhere near Akhnoor. Father was accompanying him. My grandfather with his officials and some armymen were surveying the area. Father gave a slip to them, when they were in some deep discussion or may be just brutally tired in the Akhnoor heat. The barbed fence which separates the two estranged neighbors laid nearby. My father slipped his slender hands through the jumbling wires and a grabbed a piece of soil, from across the border. We still have it with us, preserved.
During the '71 war, my father and his friend would stand atop the terrace in Jammu and shout slogans with Green flags waiving, when a Pakistan Jet flew by- unmindful of the wrath from the other hindu neighbors. The emotions over grow us, often!
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's famous speech in UN general assembly was played often on my
fathers favorite Phillips recorder. It gave me goose bumps, it still manages to do so!
The love and affection for Pakistan comes naturally to us, we are fed upon it. Our stories
are entwined with it- and the Stoics wouldn't know, why!!
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