What growing up Pakistani taught me about India and how those feelings changed in Canada [Video]

This is a First Person column by Zahra Khozema, a Pakistani Canadian journalist who lives in Toronto. For more information about CBC’s First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

I was nine, standing in the dusty courtyard of my school in Karachi, Pakistan, yelling death to India, along with my other classmates. 

“India murdabad, India murdabad.” (Death to India, Death to India.)

It was a chant I didn’t fully understand, but I did it anyway because it earned nods from teachers and cheers from classmates.

Nationalism like this always would typically peak in Pakistan during cricket matches with our neighbour or when a new Bollywood movie, yet again, portrayed Muslims and Pakistanis as a bloodthirsty villain who want to steal the honour of a Hindi queen or detonate bombs to harm civilian life in India. It also surges in times like now, when political tensions are high and the possibility of another …