The notion, so often played out in pieces of propaganda that float through our society, that Pakistan and India are 'poles apart' has been borne out by the results of India's election.

While Pakistan remains locked in a deadly struggle against extremism, India's 714-million electorate has voted, unexpectedly, strongly in favour of secularism and progress. The two countries then seem to be following different roadmaps, one leading into a medieval past, the other to a future of growth and the development India still seeks for its people.

The Congress Party and its allies captured 261 seats in the 543 Lok Sabha to set itself up as a certainty to form the next government. 272 seats are required for an outright majority, a target that presents no challenge at all. The Congress regained its vote while campaigning on its traditional areas of strength, and capturing the support of those opposed to communalism, caste-based politics and bigotry. These voters included minorities. Indeed, parties based along the lines of caste suffered a distinct set back.

Manmohan Singh, who becomes the first Indian Prime Minister in three decades to return for a second consecutive term in office, of course, represents India's success in overcoming the barriers of religion. Though the ugly realities of communal violence have not vanished, the presence of a PM from a minority community marks at least some kind of triumph. The vote though, in its essence, was also an expression of confidence in economic policies which have led, in the year before the downslide triggered by the Wall Street collapse, to a big boom. Indeed moments after the result came in, India's stock markets began to climb upwards, encouraged by the prospects of a stable government. The fact that many analysts had predicted a period of coalition-forming and the weaknesses inherent in this, the re-election of the Congress was especially welcomed.

So, what do the results across the border mean for Pakistan? In the first place they will end a six-week Indian paralysis as phased voting finally ended on May 16. The situation in Pakistan will of course be a key concern for the Indian government, which has made it clear the question of its ties with Islamabad is the top priority as far as foreign policy goes. The re-election of a 'pro-friendship' Congress government led by a Prime Minister seen as being 'soft' on Pakistan is of course good news for us. The challenge will be to see how far we can capitalise on this and rejuvenate a peace process that had been derailed by events in Mumbai late last year.

The issue of India-Pak relations, in the present global scenario, goes beyond just the two countries. The fact is that the issue of terrorism is now so deeply entrenched it can be solved only in the regional context. The problem needs to be addressed as a whole. In this, with US interest now focused on Pakistan, Islamabad needs also to persuade the world that a resolution of the Kashmir issue is integral to stability. The problems posed by the dispute over that ravaged mountain valley are immense. It has been a key factor in creating the fiercely 'anti-India' mind-set our establishment has spun like a web around itself. This of course accounts too for the alleged nexus between it and militants. The tie-up between India-Pakistan antagonism, the central role of Kashmir in this and the growth of militancy is only now beginning to receive the attention it deserves.

The post-poll period in India will possibly set the theme for India-Pakistan ties in the future. Our leaders need to see how they can shape this situation to their advantage. As we battle the wild Taliban hordes in our north, there is a need to start looking as a nation to our East, and realise that it is not here that our enemies dwell. This realisation could bring dividends. We need to change the nature of society if we are to overcome militancy. The colourful harmony that has been a South Asian hallmark through the centuries needs to be re-discovered, combined with the economic benefits of greater regional cooperation. Both are essential for our future well-being -- indeed our very survival. This notion, therefore, is not an ideal but a reality we simply must create.

For Pakistan, there are other lessons to be learnt too. The nation has reaped the dividends of democracy. The mature concession of defeat by the BJP is one indication of this. To the disappointment of many Pakistani hawks, including TV talk show anchors, both violence and rigging allegation were limited. It was notable too that much of the campaigning was issue-based, and that voters demanded answers from politicians at rallies and meetings. It was also the longer experience with democratic rule which led to the Congress sensibly steering clear of continuing its legacy of dynastic politics through the dashing young Rahul Gandhi. When some in the party, in a display at sycophancy, tried to push him forward, Gandhi and his mother quickly checked such ideas for now.

The Indian democratic experience still needs to be studied more carefully in Pakistan. We must also accept the facts: As a nation the country that gained independence with us has fared better. Despite its failures to combat poverty, inequality, caste and bias, it has big successes to its credit. Islamabad then must realise it has a great deal to gain by forming a closer alliance with New Delhi. The re-election of a government in that capital, eager to build ties with Pakistan, offers an invaluable opportunity. It is a chance that must not be squandered.

Many may not even have heard of Mohini Hameed because she had left the country after she quit the radio, while radio itself had not been left with requisite sheen after the introduction of television in the mid-1960s. But for two to three generations who were brought up on the diet of radio's culture she was an undisputed star.

Her voice ruled the waves especially in the decades of the 1950s and 1960s, and for many this was the most important time for the radio. Radio Pakistan had struggled after its separation from the All India Radio (AIR). But, successfully in a very short span of time, it recovered its losses and regained its pre-independence stature due to the untiring efforts of Z. A. Bokhari and Rashid Ahmed. One of the most important segments of radio were the plays that were broadcast late after nine o'clock and soon attracted a rich harvest of talented broadcasters, writers and producers.

Under the stewardship of Lionel Fielden and Ahmed Shah Bokhari (Patras) radio drew in a lot of formally educated young people from the colleges and universities, and they initiated a totally different kind of drama than what was prevalent in the popular stage outside on the commercial theatre. It also was very different from the popular film. It had its antecedents in the theatre, but the play under the aegis of the radio was a continuation of the kind of plays that were staged in colleges all over India, especially those run by the government or the missionaries' institutions. A band of radio playwrights emerged that included Imtiaz Ali Taj, Krishen Chandar, Rafi Peerzada, Saadat Hasan Manto, Rajinder Singh Bedi and Upindra Nath Ashk.

After partition, many other writers too became radio playwrights like Ishrat Rehmani, Ansar Nasari, Hakeem Ahmed Shuja, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, Intizar Husain, Nasrullah Khan, Saleem Ahmed, Kamal Ahmed Rizvi, Shamsuddin Butt, Agha Nasir, Abdul Majid, Syed Ahmed Riffat, Shama Pervez, Hasina Moin and Bano Qudsia.

Mohini Das, for this was her maiden name, soon rose to being the voice that had a great deal of versatility with a wide range and depth of emotional expression. There were many other radio voices which are still remembered with a great deal of fondness by those glued to their radio sets in the decades of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s of the last century. These were the talented people who made Radio Pakistan what it was.

Then there were those who lent their voices to Radio Pakistan: announcers and presenters including such men as Mustafa Ali Hamdani, Akhlaq Ahmed Dehlavi, Aziz-ur-Rehman, Nasreen Mahmood, Khalida Arjumand, Abdul Latif Musafir and Mirza Sultan Beg, universally known as Nizam Din. Muhammed Hussein was a legendry voice as indeed were Imtaiz Ali Taj, Rafi Peerzada followed later by Yasmin Imtaiz Ali Taj (Tahir) and Salma Baig.

The entire galaxy of seasoned radio actors -- Aqeel, Latif, Sh. Iqbal -- were stationed in Lahore in the first two years of Pakistan's existence, but Mohammad Hussein outclassed them all. He could produce many voices and many accents. Among the female voices Mohini Hameed's amazing versatility infused life into the characters. Radio just has to rely on sound and compensate for the movement of the body and expression of the face. Since all this had to be conveyed through sound, she was a consummate artiste as if born for that. Her memorable performance as the blind girl in Rafi Peer's famous radio play, 'Akhiyan' was haunting.

But she was not only a voice for plays. She played many characters and was also a very popular host of the children's programme. There she was known as Apa Shamim and many of us who grew up in the 1960s, when her silvery voice was considered enough to carry the hour-long programme, she was an exceedingly popular host of the programme. She was made to offer her voice for other programmes too but her forte forever remained her voice in various characters of the radio plays that became household names all over the subcontinent.

Words, once uttered, remain open like doors, we nearly always enter, but sometimes we wait outside, expecting some other door to open, some other words to be uttered.

-- Jose Saramago

The power of language -- in printed or electronic form -- is extended to the state of languages in a society. Here, English enjoys supreme position compared to Urdu or other regional languages -- for practical reasons, such as to converse and read, and to distinguish between class and status.

But now English is not confined to the posh upper classes, mainly due to access to internet, computer and mobile phone. Expressions such as missed call, engaged, busy, message and connection have penetrated our everyday language completely, in towns and villages and in cities.

Shoaib Mahmood, as reflected in his work currently on display at the Drawing Room Art Gallery in Lahore, seems concerned about Urdu being subjugated by European languages. While still being absorbed in the conventional (and convenient) split between East and West, traditional and modern, local and foreign, he focuses on the issue by juxtaposing the figure of a Mughal king and a footballer. Similarly, he composes lines in Urdu, sometimes in reverse, and superimposes them with other sentences in Urdu -- but written in Roman script.

Mahmood, currently a post-graduate student at the Institution of Art and Design, Punjab University, is showing work that was produced for his MA degree. The work comprises of miniature imagery and text-based pieces. Earlier, he was a student of miniature painting at NCA.

His text pieces, usually embossed on paper with other letters layered on top of these lines, disclose his position in the debate on East and West, local and foreign, original and adapted. One assumes that he, like most of his contemporaries, must be pondering on the acceptability of miniatures in the mainstream art world. In fact, it will be interesting to know that art world does not seek the exotic anymore from us, because artists like Rashid Rana, appearing on the front page of Christie's international auction catalogue, defy the notion of a special niche for art from Pakistan, especially the miniature painting.

The importance of our national language and its reducing relevance in relation to foreign forms of expression run parallel to the status of miniature painting. A genre, rooted deeply in the region that reflects our glorious past and is admired the world over, seems threatened by the new western media. Even if these look like text pieces, or some kind of contemporary art, certainly the use of text explains the artist's desire to address the genuine concern affecting miniature art.

A group of 10 artists have come together to celebrate Faiz Ahmed Faiz's motivational call to action 'Kuch to kaho' in a group show at Koel Gallery, Karachi (May 21 to June 1, 2009). The show is meant to reflect the turbulent political eddy that has ensconced us and the resultant torment and angst that has crept into already thorny lives. The exhibit contains works by Salima Hashmi, Jamal Shah, Nagori, Qudsia Nisar, Naheed Raza, Afshar Malik, R.M. Naeem, Abdul Jabbar Gul and Sumaya Durrani. Shows like this can become chronicles of history and reference points in the annals of art especially if the artists are able to capture the immediacy and the passion of the moment. But it is unfortunate that the participating artists were not moved enough by the current scenario in the country to paint their bleeding hearts and opted to send in work made for previous occasions or exhibitions. It is convenient for artists that we have such a vast and varied history of anarchy and violence -- images can be easily regurgitated to adapt to any new outbreak of aggression.

In fact most of the work in the show fails to live up to the expectations of a 'branded' exhibition, such as this one, where artists of at least some acclaim have been co-opted to raise a unified voice against the injustices being meted out in the country. Jamal Shah's gestural works are infused with violent scenes so as to strike the right chord between decoration and conceptually fulfilling art. Qudsia Nisar's works are too cheerful and insouciant to be relevant. Naheed Raza plays the safe hand and knowingly conceals her flat, two-dimensional women from critical gaze by incarcerating them behind a pen-like grid.

Afshar Malik's print 'Birth of a Past' contains a prophetically chaotic scene of the future while exploring the exuberant naiveté of the younger years of Pakistan's emergence. Salima Hashmi presents her work in a meticulously studied manner as if she would like not to break any laws of composition or construction. A large work by R.M Naeem is better tethered to the topical context. The huge canvas depicts multiple life-sized images of the artist wearing fatigues, t-shirt and a kaffiyeh in varying degrees of undress and concealment. The figure is obviously defiant and belligerent in his stance as if the artist were portraying a picture of the enemy who is present among us.

For most artists the premise of the show was too large to fulfil. But not for Sumaya Durrani, whose conceptually incandescent work jolts us to admit that there are thinkers and doers among us. Durrani has taken the task assigned to her seriously and has traversed the cerebral path of delving deep within herself to come up with a spiritual response to answer the echoes of her heart. When faced with adversity, it behooves our people to look to God and his Prophet (pbuh) for solace and guidance. In the sufic tradition which is the manner of the gently pacifist Muslim, the first yen for succor leads us to the ritual of 'zikr', or the repetitive incantation in praise of Prophet Mohammad (pbuh).

Thus the title of Durrani's set of three paintings: 'Jad-ul Hasan wal Hussain' or ancestors of Hasan and Hussain, an oblique reference to the Prophet, which in itself is nestled in the sufi practice that says all roads lead to God and the Prophet, no matter where you start and where you travel. The images contained in Durrani's works are enigmatic because of their simplicity. They are circles whose continuity is hindered and obstructed by faults and dents, though the circle never breaks completely. Durrani chooses this semiotic methodology to grasp her reality while reminding us that though we are driven by faith along the ever-continuing orbit, it is in times of stress that we falter and suffer from a proclivity to teeter away from the right road. But then the resilience of true faith reasserts itself and we reconstruct our trail and continue the journey. Durrani has proven once again that her realm of understanding and erudition far exceeds most artists and art practitioners not only in Pakistan but across the globe.