I got a local SIM when I landed in New York, which isn’t as easy a thing to do as it sounds. It involved many a flirty smile with Chandra Mukherjee, the mobile carrier ‘consultant’ assigned to me at the store (the term is used loosely, much like Apple uses ‘genius’ to describe its employees). Even after all that flirting, I have to say I was surprised when the number Chandra gave me began with 917, which is like a 0300 mobile in Pakistan - one that implies you’ve been around a long time. (I used to have a 917 number, one I lost many years ago in my Great Move to Pakistan). I should have known better, for the pleasant air of felicity was short-lived. Almost the minute after I left Chandra, I began getting cryptic texts from unknown numbers. “Yo girl, whats up”, “Hey Starburst, you still jumpin’?” and “Sup Starr, still chilling? got your supplies. Hit me up for our usual trade?”
After several weeks of lots of texts and some calls, I replied to a few of them to ask who they were trying to contact. Turns out my number had belonged, until last month, to a woman named Starr. No last name, but with that as your first do you really need one? I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but from the texts I got, I think Starr was a prostitute. (No judgment.) The reason I mention it is because I took a phone call for Starr the other day and after telling the guy that she didn’t have this number anymore, he thanked me, introduced himself as Guru (what else?), apologized and asked me a question. “Yo man, you have a accent, where you from?”
I told him I was from Pakistan and then braced myself. It’s often like this now. I never hide where I’m from; I’m proud of it. But I do guard myself against some kind of comment that may come afterwards.
My number had belonged, until last month, to a woman named Starr
Especially since Pakistan has been in the news of late, and as usual not in a You-must-check-out-the-nature-trails sort of way. The recent mass shooting in America turned out to have been performed by a couple of Pakistani origin and masterminded by the wife - a woman called Tashfeen Malik - who was actually born in Pakistan. I had the same reaction you probably did, which was to put my hand on my forehead and be like “Well, shit.” The last thing we needed was for random American gun violence to marry Islamist terrorism and beget a mangled hate-child with a semi automatic rifle and an ugly nose. Malik is being mentioned as a Pakistani but the media is careful to stress that she was raised in Saudi Arabia. Given the amount of awful American press we get in Pakistan, it is often surprising and heartening to me that there are countless media outlets here in the US that produce nuanced domestic news.
Even the Pakistani government was quick to release a statement to the effect of “She left here when she was 2. Don’t blame us.” But that’s not entirely accurate. Yes, Tashfeen Malik was raised in Saudi, but as we know, the Gulf States don’t really go for integration when it comes to their foreign population (in the case of Saudi Arabia this is probably a good thing). She went to college in Multan from 2007-2013 and she was a regular attendee of Farhat Hashmi’s fundamentalist Al-Huda. This is not to say that everyone who attends Al-Huda (known for championing a more conservative version of Islam among middle-class, educated women but never violence) will become terrorists. Not at all.
California shooter Tashfeen Malik attended Farhat Hashmi's conservative Al-Huda institution
But I’m afraid we’ll see more Tashfeen Maliks in the days to come. She did not draw attention to herself before she became a mass-murderer mainly because she was like countless other Pakistanis we have all read about and know. They are educated, middle class citizens who have often had hardline Saudi-inspired lobotomies and believe themselves to be anti-imperialist (read: anti-Everything-That’s-Not-Salafi).
Our government has also been making a show of its fight against extremism in public ways. Greece recently flew back a planeload of Pakistanis who had been trying to use the Syrian refugee route to get into Europe (never let it be said that we let an opportunity go to waste). Mr Chaudry Nisar and his toupee both refused to allow them back in, giving an incoherent statement about “Pakistanis having human rights” but then saying that the government was worried the plane might have ISIS sympathisers.
First, it’s somewhat perverse to encourage the Greeks to take back your own citizens.
Secondly, to the government, let us all say a collective “Girl, please. Don’t kid yourself.” ISIS isn’t trying to get into Pakistan via a Greek illegal-immigrant plane. They just aren’t. If they were, there are a thousand ways. I know you know I know this is true. But it is good that we are seen to be fighting terrorism. This week Nawaz Sharif was accosted in London by a bearded man who shouted at him “You are the enemy of Islam!” to which NS got legitimately angry and shouted back, “No, you are! Get lost!”
That deserves some kind of slow clap, I think. Much like when a bystander recently shouted “You’re not Muslim, bruv!” to a guy who stabbed someone in a subway after rambling on about Syria. We are, all of us, sick of having to defend our identities every time a Muslim man or woman kills indiscriminately in the name of religion. But rather than mourn the killers, let’s celebrate the guy shouting “You’re no Muslim, bruv” or indeed NS and his Get Lost (can someone put that on a t-shirt?).
Back to my phone call. When I said to Guru on the phone that I was from Pakistan, he paused, and then said something that shocked me: he was sorry for what’s happening in my country, and that he hopes Americans have been nice to me - especially given what’s happened last week - because he knows Pakistanis are nice people. I was floored. It’s not the exchange you think you’d have with a person on a wrong number. It’s not an exchange a lot of people might have with an American in Pakistan. But it touched me more than the entirety of the op-eds that had come out to defend our communities and for that I am grateful to the universe that delivered a Guru to me when I needed one. Even if he was possibly trying to contact a prostitute.
