The Indo-Pak virtual Partition.

Ronnie Kairon from Patiala is a school mate and now a Facebook friend. Definitely addicted to FB more than I am, I got this early morning call from him the day Pakistan had banned Facebook.
“What the hell”, he said his voice a mix of anger and lament.
“Ki hoya”, was my retort to his early morning burst, to which he replied, “Yaar the ban will mean that I am out of touch with my friend, Seema, from across the border.
Replying the way boys replied to each other when such matters are discussed, I told him to chill and make do with Indian women till then. He has a long list of them on his FB.
Jokes apart, despite the crap that we had talked, Ronnie’s lament had seemed to bother me in more ways than one after which I pushed him to spill the beans.
While Ronnie pondered over whether to share the details or not, I went looking on my FB chat for one Ahmad Fraz Khan. He as expected was missing. A journalist with the newspaper DAWN, I had met Ahmad a couple of years ago during his visit to Punjab. He was accompanying a farmers’ delegation from Pakistan and my family had the privilege of hosting the delegation. Not that I chatted with him regularly on FB ever but like familiar neighbours, I passed by his name everyday on the chat window and would think about the interesting conversations we had about the commonalities and the differences which make India and Pakistan alike, and yet so apart . When will I get to see him again was the thought that was crossing my mind, when a ping sound on my Blackberry distracted me.
Ronnie had decided to share his story which started from- once upon a time- on a cold December evening- a typical big fat Punjabi wedding was taking place. A young unmarried boy meets this very beautiful Punjabi looking girl and takes an instant liking for her but he has no idea she is from Pakistan and belongs to a family that owns Habib Bank.
Not that our Kairon Saab was weak- 120 kilos and carrying the name Kairon means a lot of weight in Punjab, but it was a pleasant surprise for him to know she is a Pakistani when they met the next day in Delhi. She was attending the wedding as part of an old deal amongst her elders that whenever a wedding took place in either of the families, the other would attend the wedding to celebrate the Lahore bond. Damn with the cross border tensions.
To cut the long story short, Seema after years of the brief meeting had sent him a FB request with the line do you recognise me Kairon Bhai? That’s not good for a Punjabi ego but nevertheless, Ronnie accepted her request and the FB revolution had re-connected them.That it would disconnect the two families again, wasn’t an option they had considered as they went about sharing their moments, like life would have been as neighbours in Lahore or Amritsar.
Did I hear the word neighbour and another friend cringe about the ban? “Shit, I had this neighbour on Farmville and she used to send me gifts like elephants, camels, and even fertilize my crop. Farmville has gone boring without her as FB is banned in Pakistan, he said.
What was going on I thought? People in India complaining about losing out on communication with friends from Pakistan. Why make such a big deal about it?
So, had Facebook redefined relationships at some level making these people from two hostile nations co-exist as neighbours on a chat window or at Farmville?
Heck, yes. Because another friend, who though a Pakistan hater, was suddenly missing his best Scrabble game challenger. A Karachi woman would play online the game of words with him all night and also discuss social, political and personal issues with him. “She was one quirky and an intelligent woman,” said merchant-navy Captain Ravi Chaudhary who spends a lot of time of FB once he is back from the ship.
If 1947 was the year of physical partition, is 2010 the year of virtual partition?

This was published in Sunday Hindustan Times as part of my column-Punjabi by Nature.
Link-http://epaper.hindustantimes.com//artMailDisp.aspx?article=30_05_2010_583_003&typ=1&pub=722