We are traveling in Kerala, on the southwestern coast of India. Beautiful place.
It is with considerable sadness that Benazir Bhutto was killed today. She was a fascinating woman who seemed to have had a vision of a better Pakistan in her mind. I think she would have made a difference, perhaps.
Living in India, you realize the huge weight that the nation carries on itself about its neighbor Pakistan. It is a unique mixture of dislike (sometimes hatred), sadness (like a member of the family who continues to be errant and self-destructive), and a healthy dose of fear. It seems that absolutely every time something goes wrong in India, someone in India mentions that Pakistan had a hand in it.
The ways in which India and Pakistan have developed over the last several decades is radically different, and if one could suppose each of them to be experiments that took place after the British granted independence in 1947, it would not be too much to say that the Pakistani experiment has failed. It is a brutal place that is devouring itself in its brutality.
I'm sorry if that is hard to hear for anyone, but the blood of a great women seems to have penned this same message today. Pakistan is a shell of a nation, a place virtually devoid of hope.
Very sad.
