How to be an Indian journalist in Pakistan (especially when you’re tailed by the police constantly)

It was my first posting outside India. I was a foreign correspondent in a not-so foreign country. Things were at once easy and difficult. From the word go, people were helpful and it was easier than I thought. You had to be grateful for things you could access and also accept that some things would remain out of bounds – which later came to include the whole country! One of my colleagues was told that my stories were too critical of the country.

At some level, like most countries, there is an “if you are not with us, then you must be against us” attitude. Before leaving for Islamabad, I had long discussions with Anita and Nirupama, the two colleagues who were posted in Pakistan before me. I was saved a lot of the spadework about setting up the house, and so on, and learnt many dos and don’ts.

One of the things I was warned about was speaking politely. I was from Mumbai, and our Bambaiya Hindi was not known for any degree of formality or correctness. Unlike Hindi, which has a strict grammar with masculine, feminine and a neutral gender, our imperfect slang has no such demarcations – we women can get away with saying “mai ata hoon” and other atrocities. Words and sentences were short and to the point; no niceties were observed and everyone was as rude as they liked. Swearing was the norm.

I found that since Pakistanis were addicted to Bollywood, the slang was familiar to them but I didn’t try it out.

Most of the time we spoke in English but when I switched to Hindi or Urdu, I had to remember to say the right things, keeping the correct gender in mind and also the Urdu greeting and the reply. Not knowing Urdu can be a severe handicap, even though I liked poetry and ghazals. And the fact that I was a South Indian didn’t help.

There was a comical bias against “Madrasis” (all the South Indians are called this in India too, so it’s a bias not restricted to Pakistan), and the stereotype included the belief that we were some uncultured, dark louts, not used to the freezing northern climate and bundling up in excess for the cold. In fact, once someone in Delhi on a freezing winter morning heritage walk remarked that I was dressed like a “Madrasi”.

Many people I met joked about our lack of appreciation of Punjabi which I didn’t know in any case. Once at a party when Punjabi poetry was being recited, I asked for a translation and was soundly ticked off. I concluded that Punjabi pride is as great as the hospitality, and my asking for a translation had kind of insulted the great language – or so the politician who was reciting it said. The loss was mine!

So I had to think carefully and frame sentences fully before I spoke; it took me twice as long to say anything politely but I learnt how to. Once when I posted Ghalib’s poetry on Facebook, my Punjabi friend (I really didn’t think of him like that) was shocked that I knew it. I told my friend that just as the “Madrasis” are vilified, the Punjabis, or Punjoos, are stereotyped as ostentatious, loud people in India who have lavish weddings.

I found them a warm, hospitable community, proud of their language and culture, and often clashing with the equally proud, hospitable and charming Pashtuns. It was quite funny at a harmless, friendly level but nationally, it was the basis of a serious political divide. Once when a lawyer spoke in Punjabi to a Pashtun friend, she snapped at him and asked him to speak to her in a language she could understand! Even in our circle of friends, there would be these fights which became very serious at times.

A lot of people ask me if I volunteered to go to Pakistan.

That was not the case. I didn’t imagine I would ever be a correspondent there and was surprised to hear I was nominated. When I was asked by Siddharth Varadarajan, then editor of The Hindu, whether I would like to be posted in Islamabad, I didn’t think twice before saying yes.

After my visit to Karachi and Hyderabad in 2011, I was excited about going to the capital even if it meant getting stuck there with little hope of travel. I realised it was a much-envied posting, and one of the more memorable reactions came from a former journalist and foreign relations expert who was so excited that she asked me to leave all my clothes at home and get them all done there! The exquisite tailoring in Pakistan had a reputation of its own. I admit this was the last thing on my mind, as generally I find it tiresome to run around to tailors, though I did get some stuff stitched there.

Initially I was lulled into a sense of well-being because of the warmth of people and the comfort of living in Islamabad. It was the end of the summer when we got there and soon the temperatures dropped, and we didn’t even need fans.

The first question that many would ask me was: “Are you being tailed?” or “Where are your friends”?

It was during a routine visit to the visa office in January 2014, with its corridors reeking of urine, that I realised that I was really being tailed. Two men literally walked into me, it could not have been an accident – a bearded creature in a salwar kameez who tried to leer all the time while trying to look grim and failing; and a younger man, chubby, and awkward about what he was doing. I will name them Beard and Chubby.

That same evening they walked into a café where I was waiting to meet someone for an interview. I was sitting in a plush sofa near the door when Beard pushed open the glass door and stopped suddenly on seeing me. Satisfied that he had “terrorised” me, he shut the door abruptly and walked outside. I sometimes wished their intelligence could be put to better use, for instance, stopping young men blowing themselves up in public places or preventing them from wrecking churches, courts and marketplaces.

The first time I went to the house of an Indian diplomat, we got out hesitantly from the car and a burly red-moustached man was there to welcome us; he announced my name with satisfaction. I was impressed he knew my name and was so welcoming, but the diplomat laughed and said that they were his “friends”. Some well-meaning people went to the extent of telling me that these guys were meant for my safety and that they could be quite helpful; one Britisher said they helped his parents get a rickshaw in Lahore when they were struggling with the language.

I was relieved to hear that spooks were tailing people from other countries as well. To the credit of Pakistanis, they knew I had this baggage, but they would rarely refuse to meet me or entertain me in their homes, and often it was a subject of much laughter and jokes. My driver, too, was constantly pestered for information and he was quite savvy about the goings-on in the capital. Even if they obviously didn’t follow me everywhere, they would know where I went and land up there and grill people endlessly on why I was meeting them, what I wanted to know, and whether I asked any “sensitive” questions.

How was I supposed to do stories without getting around? Only one NGO didn’t allow them inside where I was to attend a meeting – otherwise they came everywhere. They would pounce on my friends and ask them for information – if I had discussed defence matters (very funny) and if I had wanted any secret information.

And once when a friend was particularly dogged about not talking, they invoked the patriotic question and said that she must tell them what I had said in “the name of Pakistan”. That did it for her and she really tore them apart and told them off about lecturing her on her national duties. They also felt free to stand outside the walls and take pictures or intrude into houses and ask questions. They seemed to have a carte blanche and nothing and no one could stop them.

Excerpted with permission from Reporting Pakistan, Meena Menon, Penguin Random House India.