Preserving culture in West: Mission (not) Impossible

By F. Khan

Having been studying in an occidental state for the last one year and seven days, I have found my inherent bliss sprouting upon meeting any of my countrymen. However, despite being a stranger in a foreign land I couldn’t give up my habit of investigating a person’s nature and comparing it to my mental portraiture of a true cultural-cum-country representative. As like expatriates in Canada, American and other European states, the possession of British passports has made majority of Pakistanis prefer themselves being called Brits rather than Pakistanis; they consider belonging to a clan superior to Pakistani cousins; they like speaking English in an anglicising accent despite having forgotten reading and writing in Urdu and above all, the possessors of Visas stamped on Green Passports are treated by them as ‘surplus beings tolerated by their new alleged motherland’.

Though not seeming to conceal their ancestral nationality due to the fear of inviting countless suspicions like American and Canadian expats, some traits of British youths still place them in the acronym xBCD family (where x= ‘B’ for British in this case, Born, Confused, Desis). Due to a huge chunk of Pakistanis here, for a Brit-born Pakistani, the struggle stipulated to preserve identity does not seem to be that strenuous. Despite, the true meaning of identity still eludes today’s BBCDs making majority of them acquire the feature of a ‘coconut’ (white inside and dark outside). The perplexed definition of ‘identity’ as per viewed by them is either bondage with religion, race, ex-land or current country. Nonetheless, the struggle for coping discrimination is negligible when compared with the way dark coloured Native Americans were enslaved by European colonists.

The above lines depict the common perception about Pakistani Britons; however, a few causeries with Mehreen, a doctor-in-the-making at one of the most prestigious medical schools of country, totally transposed my viewpoint. The degree of orientalism and the fervent love for preserving cultural and traditional norms I found inculcated in the lady made me exultantly amazed.

A typical Pakistani college girl living in a city, despite being not unaware of her upcoming responsibilities as a good ‘Baho’ adept in taking control of cooking and home affairs, spends most of her time talking to ‘Sahelis’, imagine being wed with Mr. Perfect as impersonated in a Bollywood movie and decorating herself up etc. For the soul belonging to some conservative family such thinking paradigm remains limited to ‘sartaj’ of a PTV drama.

However, for Mehreen, the case is contrary. Starting from cooking, astonishingly she owns a tinge of perfectionism by having a grip on preparing all sorts of dishes ranging from famous Peshawari ‘chapli kebabs’ to Lahori ‘payes’ to deserts including ‘ras malai’ etc. Notwithstanding having spent a major chunk of her time studying and working with English peers, she is successful in maintaining a correct balance between preserving Eastern values and holding complaisance to English organizational formalities. Unlike other expat-country fellows, she is proud to openly declare herself a patriotic Pakistani amidst a crowd of ‘Goras’. When asked about her opinion about opting to live in Pakistan, her enthusiastically affirmative nodding was complemented by an Eastern statement ‘if I get my parents agreed!’

A young girl living alone in a self-owned house, miles away from her parents, and having an unrestricted access to options of availing luxuries dreamt by a typical modern day English university girl, Mehreen spends most of her free time reading Urdu books and reciting Quran. She has a profound love of her mother tongue ‘Urdu’ and is an avid fan of reading Urdu novels and ‘Khawateen Digest’.  Living in an environment dominated by Lady Gaga’s way of toning the heart, the Doctor-gonna-be has a liking for Pakistani dramas (less modern than girls back in Pakistan who are dominated by Star Plus way of living) and craze for listening to old Pakistani and Indian songs having a message of sincere love, in addition to listening ‘sufiana kalams’.

With countless opportunities for quenching vicious carnal thoughts mostly available with tags of “students’ night” or “Saturday night” etc, the oriental lady prioritize staying in home and waits for a hubby via an Eastern wedlock. She strictly defends herself with cultural and religious clues when confronted with the propagating western ideology about marriage being an authoritative bond liberating a girl from her financial independence and leading to an inferior social status.

Her sensible nature and good character has earned her trustiness from her family. Contended with the purity of her character, unlike other Eastern girls in West, (Dr.) Mehreen is free from struggles made either by suppressed untouched Easternized-Western ladies to prove themselves open-minded through attending parties or by hangdog babes to scavenge their moral guiltiness through talking about ‘desi’ family values.

On finding me uttering bad remarks about the traits of Brit-Pakistanis, she used to support her country-fellows by pointing their achievements made so far. An egregious girl, she is committed to get her religion and country portrayed as soft image through the minds of English people and uses to actively participate in the Islamic and Pakistani society of her university. Upon hearing any of her fellow Pakistani’s recognized contribution in any realm, one notices a sign of elated bliss on her forehead. Desirously having a liking to learn about Pakistani culture and its languages and with a genius brain, I was surprised to hear Mehreen, a British Pakistani lady groomed in an Urdu speaking family environment, saying to one of her friends in seraiki ‘me teko miss karendi paye ha’.

Voluntarily playing the role of a cultural and religious ambassador and representing an emblem of a true Pakistani-Muslim abroad, her mission is to work for the emancipation of women in Pakistan on grounds supported by Islamic teachings. The stories of Mukhtara Mai and the like are the preluding sources of motivation for her aim.

As with other girls, Mehreen does need a good hand for a better and prosperous future and I hope after finding a perfect partner having care and respect for her and her inner talents, she will in true sense turn her noble aims to reality. Sitting thousands of miles away from my village where merely a face covered with veil is the metric for gauging a girl’s character, I have found someone in a ‘Kafir-Gora’ country having lineaments to fulfil the expectations demanded by the modern-day scenario back in my homeland.

The writer is a post-grad engineering student at the University of Nottingham, UK