"People are not very concerned because they know this has been going on for years," said Mallya, 58, who runs the office of his dentist wife. "There's no real threat of war."
"The situation over there is not too good," said Shaheen, 40, whose brother, sister and 80-year-old mother live in Lahore, a few miles from the border with India. "Some politicians are looking for a war, but the people don't want a war."
The conflict over Kashmir is one that has haunted relations between their two homelands since India gained independence from Britain in 1947. The two countries have endured war twice and the posturings of hawkish politicians before.
Shaheen and Mallya were among other South Asians in the Philadelphia region who said yesterday that they were not overly worried - and neither were their relatives back home.
Anuj Gupta, 28, raised in Berwyn and now a law student at the University of Pennsylvania, said his maternal grandparents living in New Delhi were used to the tension.
"They've been through this so many times, this is going back to Partition," said Gupta, who heads Philadelphia Project-Impact, a nonprofit organization for South Asians. He was referring to the 1947 separation of Pakistan from India.
"My grandparents lived through that and months and months of rioting. It's like the boy-cries-wolf thing. They're not as alarmed as maybe they should be."
Undaunted residents of the region continued with their plans to travel to India and Pakistan. At Jamuna Travels in Upper Darby, several customers called with concerns about traveling in the next few days, but owner James Cherian said no one has asked yet to cancel or rebook.
"As long as the flights are operating and flying to India and Pakistan, people will travel," said Cherian, who emigrated from South India.
