Pakistan’s Favorite Indians

By Ibn-e Eusuf

I still wish India success but now without much hope.

The point of the story is different from what the sentence seems to convey; and thereby hangs a tale. Let me explain.

When I was young I desperately wanted India to succeed. Looking at Pakistan, I could see it was a basket case, the quality of its leadership decaying at such a dizzying pace that the prospects of internally driven progress were non-existent. The only hope was in a miracle or in a dramatic breakthrough in India. The latter development would make Pakistan’s citizens see the light and make them demand change from its leaders who kept feeding the myth that Pakistan was doing better than India. Or so I thought, and so I prayed for India’s success.