On Wednesday we returned to Pakistan after three weeks
travelling through its neighbour, sometime enemy, and rising regional
superpower, India. Crossing the border felt like coming home, and that small
absurd step across an invisible line cleared crowds, changed script and
currency, and bought us back to Lahore.
The sky above remained the same clear blue, and the sun
shone with equal warmth on fields that were much the same on either side of a
divided Punjab.
Comparisons are odious, but inescapable. To avoid the worst
excesses of Indo-Pak rivalry my home, Lahore, became 'next door'. Banalities
such as
'there are more cows here than next door'
'there are more people here than next door'
'the ice cream is much
better next door'
seemed easier without a proper noun. In any case the Indians
were more interested in the differences between their country and Australia, an
enormous proposition, or cricket. It was a guilty pleasure to be in a country
where front page news, day after day, was sport or Bollywood or who Madonna met
in Mumbai or Rajasthan.
All of which now creates the awkward position of talking
about the country next door to next door. Because it is clear that the streets
are cleaner and less crowded here, even if they make up for the relative space
with a driving style that borders on homicidal.
I am living near the old town now, in a small hotel with a
roof garden and terrace. It is down a lane past fruit sellers and a bakery and
is filled, not with tourists, but people writing PhDs on religious minorities
or researching for documentary films about the kusrah. No one except the
truly brave come to Pakistan seeking cheap religious enlightenment.
Ice cream is still waiting for a suitable after dinner
moment to confirm the otherwise self evident truth that it is better, next door
to next door.
