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With love, from India to Pakistan

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Imagine. A gigantic letter – 240 by 360 feet, to be exact – signed by thousands of Indian schoolchildren to their friends across the border in Pakistan with the message of love, peace and brotherhood, stated a news item posted on www.rediff.com on January 11.

“Imagine a Guinness Book of World Record entry for the largest letter, from India to Pakistan. No need to imagine, actually. Because today (January 16), in Bangalore’s Chinnaswamy Stadium, that’s exactly what is going to be unveiled,” the article stated.

“Designed by artist John Devaraj – students of whose Born Free Art School are putting the letter together at the St Joseph School ground’s tennis court – the project is the brainchild of two Americans. And those two Americans – John Silliphant and Mark Peters – came to India with friends, initially just for a year,” it said.

The article quoted Silliphant, 35, who used to design websites, and was “mostly into volunteer work” in the US, as saying that both men came with no real plans and that they came to look for something to do, because every moment there was an opportunity to be of service. “‘We just wanted to look around for those opportunities,’” it quoted him as saying.

“After working in Ahmedabad with slum children and on environmental issues, the time came for the philanthropist friends to leave India to renew their visas,” the article said.

It quoted Silliphant as saying that both men thought it would be a wonderful thing to do – to carry letters from schoolchildren in India to their friends in Pakistan.

The article said Silliphant’s partner in charity, Peters, ran a small software business and a transport firm in America.

“But when in just two days they collected 3,000 letters, the scale of things changed. ‘The kids just lit up at the prospect of the assignment,’ Silliphant says. No thoughts of rivalry and enmity in the fledgling minds? ‘Not at all,’ he adds,” the article added.

“In the capital, Silliphant, Peters and friends, who call themselves Friends Without Borders, had no such help. They physically ‘went to the school gates, asked to see the principal’. But Silliphant is quick to add that be it parents, teachers or school authorities, everyone helped their cause, everyone encouraged what they were trying to do. The Friends Without Borders campaign marched on from city to city – battling only a bad bout of jaundice that struck Silliphant – ‘empowering the children to be the change’,” it added.

The article quoted Silliphant as saying that it really was going to change the world because of the extraordinary outpouring of goodwill. The article said, “Friends Without Borders describe themselves as ‘99 percent children and some grown-ups who are working to let the children’s voices be heard’. Are the powers that be in New Delhi and Islamabad listening?”

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