Lahore - the border crossover

For as long as I have had the travel bug in me, I have wanted to visit Pakistan and specifically go to Lahore. I remember making a life list a couple of years ago and Pakistan figured top on the list of places I wanted to visit. 

I am asked by many - 'Why Pakistan?' - considering the strained relationship between our countries. I have the answer in two parts for them.

a) My maternal grandparents hail from Lahore. As a kid, I remember spending almost every summer and winter break in Kanpur, where my maternal family shifted after the partition, and being nurtured with stories of Lahore, it's splendour and their life and times there. I was brain tattooed with Lahore and its stories.

b) We are culturally akin. [I am a Punjabi] We speak the same language, have similar tastes in dress and food. We share a common bond of folk, sufi poetry and music - composed and sung in the same ragas across both the borders. And we share the same history. Punjab for the uninitiated is a cauldron of cross cultural influences of all - Afghans, Buddhists, Persians, Mongols, Mughals,Greeks, Islamic, Scythian's, Turks, Sikhs and of course the British - who invaded, lived and settled in this land of not only of fertile soil but also creative imagination.

Apart from these questions, there were many stated and unstated barriers with family and friends that I had to cross before even attempting to start the visa and travel process. Given the pendulous nature of relationship between our nations, I was told that it is an arduous task to obtain a visa to travel to Pakistan. Moreover, city specific visa's are issued and an Indian traveller has to report to the police station at every city of call across the border. Bureaucrats   in both our countries happily reciprocate these oddities ; a practice that requires quick dismantling.

Come January this year and I met Mekaal Hasan a resident of Lahore, while he was in Bombay. Mekaal, though reticent in person is voluble through his maestro qualities at music composition. He is a musical high priest who marries eastern traditional melody to western harmonic arrangements, and lords over this form of music with just 19 tracks to the band's credit with an immense fan following all over the world. 

As I got to know Mekaal better on his trip to India, I expressed my desire to visit Lahore. He seemed keen to host us in Lahore and I quickly checked with my list of Lahore aficionados and lo and behold we were 7 of us who were ready to go. A motley group from disparate walks and professions got together to travel to Lahore - to savour the place, the culture, the music, the food and of course the people. 

Enter Masood Hasan, Mekaal's dad - a media personality, jazz lover, Radio Jockey and also a journalist, who sent his personal invite addressed to the Pakistan High Commission requesting them to grant us visa's. We were elated when we learnt that we were issued personal visit visa for the cities of Lahore, Islamabad and Murree and a non police reporting one at that. Preparations for travel began.

Travelling to Lahore was the most exciting foreign travel I have ever undertaken. We flew into Amritsar airport on a direct flight from Bombay. A 30 minute drive on the well manicured roads of Punjab and we were in the Wagah Immigration Checkpost. 

Quickly disposing the immigration and customs formalities at the Indian side we took a very short bus ride to 'No Mans Land' or the Zero Line between India and Pakistan. [ see picture above]. 

The whole process of crossing over to another 'foreign' country 'on foot' was so enchanting coupled with a lurking sense of intrigue.

Our bags meanwhile were carted by the Indian porters up unto the border. They then handed over our bags ever so simply to the Pakistani porters to do the rest of the lugging, almost as a daily matter of routine. Nothing ceremonious just a daily chore and here we were the most excited clicking pictures of both the countries and shaking hands with officials at both ends. [ see picture below]

The Pakistani side of immigration and customs were quicker and friendly and in a duration of  less than 60 minutes we had crossed the border from one country to another.

The city of Lahore was now 23 kms away. Masood Sahab grabbed each of us in warm hugs, as if we had known each other for ever, as we now officially crossed into Pakistan.