Together we shall win

Together we shall win
By
Apurva Sanjay Malewar & Ali Hassan Memon

I was In Romania working on a project and this was 5 years ago, One day I was called by one of the AIESEC organizers and they said that we have someone from Pakistan coming over, I was excited, For one reason, I had never met anyone across the border, and I did know a few Pakistanis in India and Canada, but that was like a very Desi atmosphere.

But, to meet someone first hand right out of Pakistan was a totally different experience. I had not known Ali then, we just knew each other through AIESEC but we had not met yet. I came back to India and one day I received an e-mail from Ali stating that, he is getting to go to Romania and he needed some help with paperwork. It was then that we really got in touch and we started bonding.

Over the years we kept in touch and we always discussed a lot of things about India and Pakistan, the politics, the history, the current affairs, and many other things related not only Indo-Pak ties, but practically about everything. We became really close as friends and we started keeping in touch on a regular basis, so much so that we got talking about issues related to our lives.

Our jobs, our love, our life in general, it just was subject to only Ali and I. My family I told them about our friendship, so it was pretty tight. The only thing Ali and I have never discussed is our families; I guess we just did not get the opportunity to get there yet. Life was going so fast for us, with its perils, its issues and times where things were both good and bad.

There was a time again when life really hit us hard and beat us to the ground, in our own respective ways of life, I guess we needed someone to trust, we had been out of touch for a while, but we had never forgotten each other. We did write occasional e-mails to each other but that was brief.

One fine day I don’t know who it was, not that it really matters, Ali and I just poured our hearts out on an e-mail, and we totally opened up, all the troubles that we had, all the huge walls of pain that were heavy on our hearts went in writing, we wrote long e-mails to each other, trying to understand and pacify each other, being there for each other UNCONDITIONALLY, and morally supporting each other. We were like brothers now, and in time we became a family.

Every day I at least would eagerly wait for that mail from Ali praying and hoping that there is cheer in his life and he is fighting all his perils, am sure Ali did the same with my mails, we were quite regular with writing to each other. I should we gave each other the strength to move on. And we do so even now.

Then one day I wrote Ali stating that I am cheering for Pakistan, being an Indian, because the team was in total disarray, turmoil, from being deserted by their players, the match fixing scandals, the politics, everything was a total hogwash, and now they were in the World cup, amidst all the chaos that they went through, and they were playing like champions. I am hooting for Pakistan, and I hope they win.

Ali wrote back stating that respects my opinion and also wished the Indian team luck and said that they were a real good team and hope they win the cup too. The best team that wins.

I guess that triggered Ali a thought to form a community where people like us can us a it as a platform to showcase to the world that our feelings between two nations are mutual, in good spirit of peace and brotherhood and then “Together we shall win” the community was born.

This is to all you people out there who are a witness to this exquisite and a noble cause, we hope to make this a big event and we hope that we succeed in being the ambassadors of peace, love and brotherhood among the two nations, India and Pakistan.

The two people who are being talked about:
Ali Hassan Memon
Apurva Sanjay Malewar