A Pakistani Bahu and an Indian Damaad

Two interesting things happened last week.

On Sunday Virat helped us achieve one of our most incredible T20 wins – and coming against Pakistan that made it all the more delightful. As I was scrolling through the many posts on social media, I was instantly taken up with this photo of an India-Pakistan couple holding interesting placards, the husband’s grin slightly more pronounced than the bahu’s (daughter-in-law). It made me feel, what they call ‘warm’.

A day after Rishi Sunak, an Indian damaad (son-in-law) became the Prime Minister of UK. And it was an incredible feeling that our Narayan Murthy’s son-in-law was the PM. It somehow felt, as they say in Hindi, ‘ghar jaisa’.

I wondered what made me feel so warm about that photo and that news.

The next evening, I did a coaching session with one of our Client Partner. It was a short, intense session that ended with an activity on how we want to be remembered on our death. It left me with a deep sense of reflection. And in that state, I stood for my namaaz.

And there the connection dawned on me.

Behind all the pride of victory over a traditional rival and the wheel coming full circle on our former rulers, was a real-life message of inclusion – of a pair of individuals and of a society that was not just accepting someone not naturally their own – by the definition of mass understanding – but loving them and allowing them to be their leader.

The Pak daughter was comfortable being an Indian daughter-in-law, being wife to a man whose heart was Indian, but who was comfortable to have a Pakistani as his life-partner. It is beautiful to see a generation that is so at ease with identities of seemingly opposing polarities.

And while there was a lot of pride for Rishi in India, how can one not appreciate that aspect of the British society that accepted a non-native to lead them and their country.

Such examples of inclusions – at an individual and societal level – make us believe in the universality of being human beyond boundaries of religion and geographies and caste and color and descent. And how love can overcome all seeming differences.

It is such love and inclusion which is the hope of humankind.