Re: Her, Pol, Soc: On the makeup of the Sindhi Sammelan in Orlando

[Meena Mariwalla <Kismat@CONCENTRIC.NET>]

hello

although i am not an active participant on the sindhinet, i could not
help but respond to this email that was troublesome to me.  i am a
sindhi and a member of the "younger" generation.  i understand that
this email was intended to clear up the air on mr. gajwani's views but
unfortunately i have encountered many other people of the same view
point.  and to that end, i seek to voice my thoughts!

i understand that the goal of uniting all sindhis is an idealistic one
and one that seems achieveable in theory.  but the fact that it sounds
good or noble in thoery should not prevent us from pursuing it with
out best efforts.  the most poignant and distressing part of
mr. gajwani's email for me were his statements under the header of our
recent paths being different.  i understand that the two communities
have been travelling different paths, but isn't it time that those
paths converged.  mr.  gajwani says that we should continue to develop
on our individual paths and then convere at some point in the future.
in my eyes that future is and has to be now.  and this is simply b/c
when are we going to know that it is the "right" time for the paths to
converge.  as is stated in a famous cliche, there is no time like the
present.  if we continue to say that eventually we will join hands,
odds are that it will never happen.  it may be a cyncal point of view
but the reality of it is, is that if we haven't been able to come
together to salvage what is left in the past it will not happen in the
future.

another point that i would like to address is the "common culture"
statement made under the "divergent social interests" header.  if we
all call ourselves sindhi how could we not have a common culture?!
every community has subtle differences within it, in fact if we are
going to talk about it in the hindu/muslim split, aren't there
"cultural" differences within the hindu sindhi communit as in between
families that came from different parts of sindh.  the fact of the
matter is that we have a common base- the seed of a common culture and
language! we should use these commonalities to build on not separate
on.

my third point is really a question: what were or have been the goals
of the samellans in the past? (if someone does have this info i would
be interested in knowing it) from my understanding spreading knowledge
of our culture was the primary goal.  any secondary goals that may
have existed were on the part of those attending. obviously one of the
major ways in which we can learn about the culture is by meeting
others.  but to say that the co-mingling of hindus and muslims at the
samellan would discourage future attendance is shocking.  the job of
the samellan IS to spread knowledge and if there are persons who think
that they cannot attend a cultural forum because they are afraid of
meeting new persons, well then the loss is theirs.  the samellan
should not be commercialized to the degree that we lose sight of the
goal that it was intended for.

i find it very distressing that in this day and age we continue to
harp on the differences between hindus and muslims, that only serve to
cointinue to seperate us.  if we should use the differences, use them
positively to unite and not to divide. and there is no right time than
now, carpe diem!

meena mariwalla