The magazines and newspapers for sale on the streets of Jackson Heights,
Queens, deliver the latest news from India and Pakistan with photographs
of missiles and headlines like ''War Clouds,'' ''Retaliation'' and
''Armageddon?''
Yet as the Indian and Pakistani armies fired machines guns across their
frontier in Kashmir the other day, immigrants from both countries who work
at a jewelry shop on 74th Street were having a late lunch together in the
store. Around the corner, Indians were selling luggage to Pakistanis,
Pakistanis were buying gold necklaces from Indians, and people from both
nations were buying toiletries at the Duane Reade drugstore.

Nearby, at Public School 69, classmates from countries that have been
enemies since 1947 were zipping their knapsacks and lining up for
dismissal, and a few blocks away, the movie theater was selling tickets to
Indians and Pakistanis for the 8 p.m. showing of a Hindi-language love
story.
More than 200,000 Pakistani and Indian immigrants live in New York City,
according to the latest census figures. And if the everyday rhythm of life
on 74th Street, in the commercial center of the city's growing South Asian
population, tells the tale of coexistence, theirs is a peaceful one that,
for now, seems almost untouched by the crisis.

''If you live with the people from other countries, you will know their
feelings,'' said Killol Butala, an immigrant from Gujarat, India, a state
near the border with Pakistan, and an owner of the Butala Emporium on 74th
Street.

Since Britain carved its Indian empire in 1947 into Pakistan, a Muslim
nation, and the largely Hindu India, the two countries have fought three
wars, two of them over Kashmir, a region that both claim. Rising tensions
in recent months over Kashmir have pushed the two countries, both with
nuclear capabilities, to the brink of another war.

And there is worry, if not division, on 74th Street. There are longer
lines to buy prepaid telephone cards to call home, cards that are sold on
virtually every corner in Jackson Heights, designed with scenes from
various regions and saying things like ''Hello Pakistan!'' and ''India
Express.'' There are lingering conversations about the conflict and
concrete fears about the safety of relatives in India and Pakistan.

''Everybody is upset,'' said Shahid Taj, an immigrant from Pakistan who
lives in Sunnyside, Queens, next door to Indian immigrants, and who was
buying a gold bracelet for his 1-year-old daughter at the Pakistan Chamak
Boutique on 74th Street.

Tucked under his arm was The Pakistani Post, an Urdu-language newspaper
that on Wednesday featured three pictures of a missile able to carry a
nuclear warhead that Pakistan had test-fired the day before.

''They are neighbors,'' Mr. Taj said. ''They should live like brothers.''

A majority of Indians -- and Indian immigrants in the city -- are Hindu,
although there are Muslim Indians who worship alongside Pakistanis in
mosques here, as well as Christian Indians. Pakistanis are generally
Muslim.

The official language of Pakistan is Urdu, which is virtually the same in
spoken language as Hindi, the main language of India, allowing the two
groups to communicate easily. The written versions of Hindi and Urdu,
however, are based on different alphabets.

While Hindus and Muslims in India and Pakistan are killing each other,
here their differences seem eclipsed by the shared experiences of being an
immigrant in New York City. They are South Asians in a foreign country,
''Desi,'' as many in the younger generations say, using a Hindi word that
means ''from my country'' to refer to Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis
and others from the Indian subcontinent.

''In America, we don't look so much at the differences,'' said JT
Hemrajani, a college student who helps his parents, Indian immigrants, run
the Little India Emporium on 37th Avenue, selling suitcases, perfume and
other items. ''It's a tense situation over there, but here it is really
fine. We are all bonded.''

Even the local police precinct sounds Pollyannaish about the neighborhood.

''We've never had any problems between Indians and Pakistanis,'' said
Police Officer Colleen West, who has worked at the 115th Precinct station
house on Northern Boulevard at 92nd Street for 14 years. ''This is a big
melting pot, this community. We have all nationalities and religions,
customs, beliefs. And we even have the second-largest gay and lesbian
community. And we never have any kind of problems. Everyone lives quite
happily here.''

Two Bangladeshi immigrants shopping for luggage for a trip to Florida
agreed, but added that they were feeling concerned about the latest
conflict between India and Pakistan, given the proximity of Bangladesh to
India.

''We are very afraid, very nervous,'' said Mohammed Sharif, who lives in
Woodside. ''If they fire, they will destroy everything. We'll be affected,
too.''

Qazi Hussein, an immigrant from Lahore, Pakistan, who opened the Pakistan
Chamak Boutique last year, eats lunch with his Indian employees at a table
in the back and sells Saris and gold jewelry, said he was worried about
his family in Lahore. He is losing patience, he said, with political
leaders who seem unable to defuse the crisis.

''Look at us,'' Mr. Hussein said, gesturing toward the street. ''We work
together -- Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims. We eat together. We have no
problems. This Kashmiri cause, the time is over. The problem must be
solved.''