By Umer Nangiana
He looks different and he thinks differently. A colourful white Honda CRV, with multiple flags and a picture of a man pasted on its body, was roaming around the city during the past few days.
No ordinary vehicle, this SUV has come all the way from London, passing through 16 countries on its way to Doha. And the man in the picture is the man behind the wheel — that, too, on the right-hand side of the vehicle.
He and his CRV are on a mission. Meet Malik Shakil a.k.a. Star Malik, a young man wearing his signature off-white jacket studded with spangles on its lapel and a star-shaped earring in his left earlobe.
Few have ventured on such a brave journey, aiming to accomplish what many before him have attempted in many ways and on a much bigger a scale but failed to meet with success: peace between India and Pakistan.
He is travelling overland, driving his CRV across 21 countries across the world, meeting Pakistani and Indian communities residing there to convey his message of “peace, friendship and love.”
Full of determination and optimism, this young self-appointed peace ambassador intends to end his journey in India after passing through Pakistan in the third and final leg. He has already made his presence felt in 17 countries.
At the outset, many would have laughed at his idea and, at the least, not taken him seriously but this does not deter Malik. He has acted upon what he conceived and he is more than just satisfied with its impact.
“Many people have asked me how I think that this journey would suddenly make decades-old tensions between India-Pakistan go away. My answer has always been that my peace journey simply is an effort to change the hearts of the extremist elements on both sides of the divide,” a confident-looking Malik tells Community.
“It is a message for them to wake up. It is time we realise the importance of peace. I don’t think the younger generation on both sides of the border thinks about wars and violence. I am sure they would want to live in peace and have cordial relations,” he says.
A Pakistan-origin British national who was born in Kuwait, Malik is a chauffeur by profession. He is funding his journey all by himself. The motivation is personal and so are the means. He has selected 19 destinations — 13 in European Union and six in the Gulf region, besides India and Pakistan for his journey over land. If he wanted to make a short-cut, he could have easily driven to Pakistan from London in the UK in merely 16 days by land route, passing through France, Germany, Austria, Hungry, Bulgaria, Turkey and Iran.
“But the whole purpose of my journey is to meet Pakistani and Indian communities on the way, documenting my experiences of the meetings and to raise the flag of friendship between India-Pakistan in all these countries,” says Malik.
After completing the first leg in Europe, he shipped his vehicle to Kuwait from where he continued to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar. His next stop is the United Arab Emirates before he moves into Pakistan and India.
“It has been an amazing experience for me. So far, all the Indian and Pakistani people I have come across in different countries have been very supportive of my cause,” says Malik. “And it has amazed me to see how Indians and Pakistanis live together in some places, even share houses and eat from the same plate. It is a great manifestation of unity and I have filmed those moments,” says the volunteer peace ambassador between the two nuclear-powered neighbouring states, with a hint of pride. Why a peace mission and why India-Pakistan for that matter? It is a long story. But Malik cuts it short. What motivated him to work towards peace between India and Pakistan, in particular, was a personal life-changing incident.
In 2007, he was diagnosed with a rare degenerative eye disorder called kerataconus. Turning into a recluse, Malik confined himself indoors. It took him nearly eight months to recover with the help of therapies.
During his recovery, he could do little but listen to radio and meditate. One of those days he happened to listen to a woman’s story on a radio programme.
This Indian woman, a doctor, while speaking on Pak-India ties, told listeners that her parents, one from India and the other from Pakistan, had contracted a secret love marriage. However, when their respective families got to know eventually, it ended in a divorce.
“She started weeping when she described how she had to spend her childhood without one of her parents. Her story moved me so much. I decided then and there that I would do my best to end the chronic tensions between the two neighbours that have affected so many lives,” recalls Malik.
The idea of taking a land route and meeting with the expatriate communities of Pakistanis and Indians across the world was born. He planned to gather the support of people who generally enjoy congenial ties while living out of their respective countries.
“There must be a small minority who would still have differences, but, overall, the vast majority lives in peace. Even the area where I live in London is dominated by Indians but I have friendship with almost everyone there,” Malik says.
The CRV is his personal vehicle. On the way, he encountered financial difficulties and had to halt his journey sometimes to find the means to carry on. Malik says while he faced no difficulties in Europe where there were even no marked borders between countries, the visa processing in the Middle East was arduous.
Initially, he was told he would get the Saudi visa on entry, but that was not the case. So he had to stay back in Kuwait for 16 days. All in all, fulfilling immigration requirements took an extra 21 days, further straining his resources.
The weather in both continents has not been too kind to him. “It was winter in Europe and it is summer here. In both cases, people would not come out much,” says Malik, with a smile. However, this was the only time available for him to take the journey.
So where did he get what has become a signature jacket for him? “It was specially made for me by my mother. The idea was to attract attention of the people and look different,” Malik explains.
As he had embarked on this journey alone, he had to rely upon himself to attract maximum attention. He designed the vehicle accordingly.
Did the change in driving sides in different countries not bother him?
“I just got used to it. However, in France, I escaped an accident because I was driving in the wrong lane. Then again, in Denmark, I got on to the wrong side of the motorway. But the rest of the journey remained largely fine,” says Malik.
Randomly, he meets people on roads, restaurants and other public places and engages them besides taking their views on camera. Along the way, he has also been getting media attention which he says he is grateful for because that has helped his cause a great deal.
He feels honoured to have become the first from the sub-continent to have raised the Pak-India friendship-flag in these many countries in such fashion. “I think I have played my part. My videos and pictures of the journey available on the internet would go a long way in changing people’s minds,” hopes Malik.
He plans to hand over one folder each containing the peace messages to an Indian and a Pakistani celebrity respectively, at the end of his journey.
