The other evening as I went about my routine of making dinner.
I ran out of rice, so I went to the pantry to refill my container. I had two bags that were partially used up. One from India. One from Pakistan.
As I sat they side by side, I realized… “These look the same. They smell the same. I bet they even taste the same.”
Something profound hit me when I poured the remained of the rice into my rice cooker. When I put them in the same pot, I could not tell the difference. They mixed in together as one. I saw no border, no color difference, no distinguishable difference.
Profound, or a coincidence?
When I was in Pakistan, I was told by people there, whom I trusted knew the movement of agricultural products, that Pakistan sells Basmati and other varieties of rice to India. It gets repackaged, they claimed, and nobody’s the wiser. I often think about this now as I peruse bags of rice on Indian grocery shelves here.
Why should I be surprised? While the German wall was up, there was a brisk–and legal–trade going on between the two halves of this country. It just was never made explicit or advertised as such to the buying public. I understand there’s business going on now between the US and Venezuela which would embarrass Chavez, were this capitalist sin widely known.
Well rice do not have a mind.they dont how to hate another.whereas people are the ones constant making borders n distinguishing themselves from one another.pakistant and india will always be at each others throats as long as d two countries exist.