When war comes home

War: what is it good for? Soul singer of the '70s Edwin Starr succinctly answers that question with the words "absolutely nothing" in his appropriately named track War. But of course, as global military activity in the intervening years has illustrated, nobody paid Starr any heed. Except maybe Elaine Benes from Seinfeld, who tried in vain to convince people that it was Leo Tolstoy's alternative title for War and Peace.

But I digress. War. What is it good for? Discuss — although if your internet connection is housed on Indian soil, you may find yourself sorely limited with whom you can carry out what promises to be a lively discussion. For example, no longer do you have the luxury of picking Fawad Khan or Atif Aslam's brains over this most current of current affairs. At least not on Instagram, and, if Elon Musk (or the horde of tech hombres he commands) consents to it, you can also forget about touching base with them on X.

Of course, if you are Pakistani, unlike any Indian friends you may have accumulated digitally, you are at least fortunate enough to not be at the mercy of a government that blocks all social media accounts that now amount to Indian base treason (such as Mahira Khan flaunting her latest sari). But in terms of liaising with or appealing to the better nature of anyone across that border, it all boils down to the same thing.

Even without the threat of censorship, it is unlikely you would wish to pour your heart out over war matters to Fawad and/or Atif's Bollywood counterparts — or, to be more precise, watch those Indian counterparts pour out theirs. Certainly not after a quick peruse through Ajay Devgn, Kajol, Varun Dhawan's passionate brand of rousing 'Jai Hind' online warmongering.

But should you be allowed to tut at a blinkered Bollywood when you packed up your life in Pakistan and moved away to start anew? Do you relinquish the right to feel a stab to the heart at an unprovoked Indian onslaught when the saved "home' address in your Google maps ensures that you, personally, will never be caught in the crosshairs of a trigger-happy Indian military? In other words, do you still bleed green when you leave?

The diaspora's eagle eye

To get to the bottom of that question is, unfortunately, not quite the two-word affair that the peace-loving Starr offered up for his thoughts on war. Holders of green passports anywhere outside Pakistan - be it the in the Gulf countries, the UK, mainland Europe, the US, or wherever else Pakistanis have encamped - will feel a tug towards anyone who looks and sounds vaguely like them, even if they never grew up in their country of origin. The sight of a stranger crossing the road sporting an embroidered lawn shalwar qameez in that precious one week of summer we get in London can send a homesick Pakistani woman sprinting after her in the hopes of securing a new friendship over tea and samosas.

When that parent in your daughter's class boasts roughly the same melanin level as yours, and when they, too, enjoy the on-screen offerings of (or at least are aware of the existence of) both Hania Aamir and Diljit Dosanjh, then it doesn't matter where their great-grandparents opted to stay during that messy time of partition.

You can ignore any historical bloodshed circa 1947, because when you have not swallowed a lifetime of Pakistan Studies textbooks under duress (and, if we are calling a spade a spade, taught to hate by default), nationalist history blurs into a featureless blob. Under normal circumstances, the only time that partition line really sharpens into existence is during cricket season, when loyalties assume form depending on the uniform of your chosen team (although admittedly, when your allegiance lies with a lime green outfit, you would need to incredibly stout of heart to still be committed to the cause.)

Questions, questions galore

This past week, it will astonish nobody to learn, has seen a shift. With something far darker than cricket having morphed into an apocalyptic cloud over the country so many of us still call home, regardless of the colour of our passports, WhatsApp groups have been set ablaze with a high traffic of "Is your family okay?" texts, beefed up with gloomy predictions of the weeks to come.

Do those once sturdy foreign Pakistani-Indian bonds of friendship, smelted amid a sea of other-ness, stand a chance of surviving in the spectre of a war determined to cleave it all in two? Does it help anyone when, at a secondary school in Maidenhead, UK (comfortably beyond the reach of any Indian or Pakistani shots fired in anger), a group of boys of Pakistani origin seek out their Indian cohorts (most of whom do not follow the news with the same rigour as football fixtures) to boo them in the common room for the activities of a military thousands of miles away? As a parent, is it hypocritical to break up fights with the weary words "I don't care who started it" when in reality, a petulant "But they started it" can trigger a full scale war?

Can you empathise with Facebook posts that say "Really trying hard to fake-smile at my Indian colleagues today"? Or do you hark back to Starr's advice that war is good for absolutely nothing, and silently judge your fellow NICOP holders for fuelling the fire with such reckless abandon?

Those of you who await answers with bated breath are sadly in the wrong place. However, if you are in the market for more questions, here are some more for your collection. Has that desi mother of your daughter's friend become imperceptibly more Indian overnight (even though she was born in Leicester and only visits Mumbai once every six years for a family wedding)? That shalwar-qameez-clad woman that you chased down the high street, who turned out to be from Kerala instead of Karachi — do you dare risk your friendship and begin a casual conversation over current affairs? Or do you both tape your mouths shut and navigate a determinedly safe course?

On the inside, you ache with overarching dread as you fear for your Karachi-based family's safety, assuaged by daily WhatsApp liaisons. Would you be able to mask rage and pretend all is normal when your Indian neighbour pastes a flag on their window? Or worse, puts a heart on Kajol's X posts? In the absence of a token apology that will never come on behalf of an Indian government, will a part of you blame your Indian colleagues for potentially ruining your summer plans of visiting Pakistan as airlines begin to shun Pakistani airspace?

We expats are not directly affected by Indian air strikes. But we did not pack our roots in that shipping container when we left. Starr may have been universally ignored, but we all know he was not wrong. War poisons minds, pollutes friendships, and severs bonds forged far beyond the nucleus of what started it all. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.