Manasa Patnam topped Miranda House at Delhi University in the Economics programme for three years in a row in 2005, then went on to read development economics at Oxford University, when she was offered a teaching job at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan’s premier institute. She took it. She has just completed two years in Pakistan. Apart from diplomatic staff at the high commission in Islamabad, Manasa Patnam, 23, must be the only Indian working in that country.
Manasa’s story is certainly unique. She went on a 50-day visa two years ago, which was extended three times for a month each. Then when it seemed as if another extension wouldn’t come through, it did – for a whole year. A couple of weeks ago when I caught up with her at her department in Lahore, she was in full-blown depression. The joint secretary in Pakistan’s ministry of interior, it turned out, had learnt about Manasa’s case and had been horrified that an India had been given extension upon extension to live and work in the country.
Meanwhile, Manasa has learned to love Pakistan in so many different ways. I asked her about her life over the last two years and how she felt, now that she was getting ready to leave for her other home, in India.