Waiting to be born again!!!!!!!

Get up!!!!!!!!!!
Yawn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let me sleep
I was flying in the clouds, far away from any sense of reality.

Get up!!!!!!!
I saw the time. It was 5 am .

Get up!!!!!!!! You have to go to Lahore. You will miss the bus
Lahore?
Lahore?????????
How could i forget , I had to catch a bus to Pakistan.

"Are you out of your senses?"
That was the reaction of most of my friends and family members when i expressed the desire to go to Lahore and represent my country in a technical festival and more so be an ambassador of peace.
There is a saying in Lahore in punjabi - "Jinne Lahore nahi dekhya o jamya e nayi " which literally translated into english means - "One who has not seen Lahore has not yet been born"
My persistence and conviction finally paid off. After a lot of deliberation i convinced my family and friends and hence I was finaly going to be born at the age of 21.

Not in the weirdest of my dreams had I ever imagined travelling to Lahore. Lahore - the land of my forefathers who had migrated along with a million of other people when the brutal civil war broke out at the time of partition in 1947.Life had come a full circle.
Since then India and Pakistan have fought each other in the battlefield 3 times.
The relationship between the two countries after independence has for most of times been full of uncertainty and suspicion. Most of it can be attributed to the hardcore religious fanatics on both sides.
The journey from Delhi to Wagah border was very smooth. We had armed jeeps surrounding our bus, which incidentally did not stop at any traffic signal throughout the journey.(All the traffic used was stopped for us to pass through which was made us feel like big shots )
The reality had not sunk in until I reached the border. Lahore was just 30 miles away.
I looked out of my window as we crossed over from one side of Punjab to the other.
Pakistan’s side of Punjab was no different from our side. On both sides of Punjab i could see small children playing cricket in the lush green fields near the highway and the farmers diligently tending to their crops .

The highlight of the trip was the visit to "Lahore Food Street" . Never in my life have I had better food ( And i ave had food at a lot of places , from Ladakh to Kerala , from Jiasalmer to Bhubhaneswar , from London to Ludhiana ). The concept is unique. There are about 40 small shops churning out choicest kebabs , biryanis , sweets and curries . You can sit anywhere and order the best of food from anywhere in the street. My personal favourites - Chicken tikka , fried fish , sardar di machhi , seekh kabab and lassi(sweet curd) .The lassi deserves a special mention. Many a competition were fought between the Indian and Pakistani students on who could drink the huge glass of lassi first , and yours truly came out on top ( being a Punjabi and being a lover of any type of lassi surely helped ;)

Other highlights of the trip -
1. Playing an Indo - Pak cricket match with all the passion and sledging ;)
2. Being linked with Fatima . We were called the Veer Zaara Jodi( the movie had just released) because we kept the 40 odd students waiting for an hour in the bus while both of us roamed around the Anarkali Bazaar in Lahore. Let me clarify it - The allegations were baseless , we had just lost our way !!!!!
3. Being offered "Palak paneer" and "moong ki dal" at a Pakistani home. I never thought that I could get home cooked vegetarian food in Pakistan
4. Playing night golf in Lahore and having hukkah for the first time in my life :)
5. Being one of the first Indians to hear Atif Aslam and the band - Jal. They had just come up with their album "Aadat" in pakistan , which later became a rage in India. I liked another band called E.P (incidentally people behind both these bands had been ex-students of the college that was hosting us) ,though it did not become very popular in India.

It has been around 4 years since we came back from Pakistan feeling like Kings.
Years have gone by , both of our countries are once again at loggerheads.Massacres like Mumbai have happened .War #4 does not seem to be far away. Taliban adds a whole new dimension to the current scenario. But something that gives me hope is the educated middle class in Pakistan. The students that i met there had a vision , they were not religious fanatics , they were like us . They thought like us , they wanted freedom too , they wanted democracy .They fought for democracy in Pakistan when Musharaf was committing atrocities against the judiciary. They used mediums like blogs to promote the need for democracy in their country.
I believe the hope rests on their shoulders .

Till then i wait to be born again..............................