Bells toll for children on both sides

Many years ago, I was witness to a curious spectacle. At a party in Mumbai, attended by Indians and Pakistanis, many of whom had been friends and who had attended the same colleges and belonged to the same social circles in Europe and West Asia. An evening that had begun as a pantomime of exquisite tehzeeb and exaggerated courtesy and then had very rapidly degenerated into one of extreme hostility and acrimony.

Perhaps the clutch of assembled Pakistani grandees had gone too far with their Gandhi jokes, perhaps their Indian counterparts had been too quick to take offence. Perhaps the unlimited supply of J&B being quaffed back with equal zest by both groups had been the match that had lit the heady fuel - but before any one knew, it had almost come close to blows with some perfectly sane men saying pretty insane things to each other.

The women present had not seen it coming.

What had happened? "Old wounds," said one remorseful guest the next day. "No hard feelings," said his equally shamefaced contemporary from across the border, before they began to make plans for a swim and a game of squash at the local club.

It wasn't the only time either that I'd been witness to the unravelling of that complex bromance between alpha males of the subcontinent.

At a media event in Mumbai to which a distinguished publisher had been invited, an Indian colleague had played the 'Bad Fairy' by asking a particularly provocative question, unambiguously aimed to insult.

At a party in London, a slightly inebriated Karachi businessman had been needlessly rude to an Indian technocrat and, God knows from what the wives of Indian and Pakistani expats said, the relationship between their men folk could be held up as an explanation of the word 'Frenemies'.

I was reminded of these instances on Thursday night as I watched an inordinately fractious exchange between Indians and Pakistanis over the accusations and counter accusations of masterminding terror operations.

It had been a day after the heinous massacre in Peshawar. The Indians on the panel were outraged that Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, alleged to be the key handler in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks case, had been granted bail that day. The Pakistanis on the panel were banging on about similar Indian transgressions, the moderator, with chilling cynicism, was playing both sides off in an aim to raise TRPs and Twitter outrage.

That's when I found myself wondering: would a similar discussion between women from the two nations have achieved the same decibels of hostility?

Or would the fact that one nation had recently lost 132 children be a sobering reminder of the fragility of the situation? I think it would.

I would like to believe that the tragedy of innocent young blood spilt would have prompted one woman or the other, regardless of country, to request for a cessation of hostility for at least a few days in their memory. It would have, if nothing else tamped down the vitriol and had a sobering effect on the grandstanding.

And, that is because women know there is a price to pay for angry words. And they know who pays that price.

So, I'd like to believe that Pakistani and Indian women facing each other on the subject of terror could make a difference.

After all they know for whom the school bells toll, because no matter on which side of the border they toll - they toll for the children. All of them.

Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer malavikasmumbai@gmail.com