Lahore, you Disppoint me-I

A hedge it was. The neighbours on both sides had nurtured it assiduously over a period of 50 years. The barrier now concealed from us in the east the greens that were fabled to exist across the frontier.
Never having ventured beyond, my own picture of the alien west was coloured by the exotic hues created by others who had viewed the landscape decades earlier. Many of an earlier generation had vivid memories of their youth spent in a wondrous city. Lahore. For them, Lahore was the most vibrant metropolis of undivided India. An unmatched centre of culture and education, they never tired of narrating, the capital city of a capital state, the original Punjab. The social environment of the time was modern, open and interactive, our records confirm. It inspired art, music, films and sport. During the first half of the 20th century every young man and woman with talent or ambition, gravitated to Lahore, so we were told. We were regaled with the memories of our seniors: of colleges set in sylvan surroundings; of eating places serving a myriad and heady mix of cuisine; of sports extravaganzas witnessed by knowledgeable lovers of the game. Even as it pleasingly combined the traditional and the modern, Lahore had grown up as a nodal point for organised protest against an oppressive colonial regime. The Punjab of that day had fashioned pacifist and revolutionary alike. Lahore was home to freedom fighters, and to distinguished jurists who defended them in court, at risk of political reprisal at the hands of entrenched rulers.
So massive was the migration of people of various communities across the new international border in 1947 that almost every family in our Punjab carried certain indelible memories of the times spent on the other side. Over the years, the new generation, at least in the east, developed a curious form of collective vicarious nostalgia for sounds and sights relating to the west. This fascination, and longing, was fanned not a little by hostilities that broke out periodically between the two sides. My first visit to Pakistan, in the month of April 2004 (hopefully it will the first of many to come) in a small group of three families, was tinged with great expectancy. “How would we be received?” we wondered apprehensively, alive to the recurrent political tensions between the two nations. How real was that wonderful world so fondly remembered by the last generation?
Our trepidation was unfounded, as it transpired when we crossed the international line at Wagah, near Amritsar. The other Punjab turned out to be an absolute anti-climax. My disappointment was no different from that of the boy in the childhood verse who ran away from England expecting to see a spectacularly different world in the next door Scotland.
My “wonderment” too, was at seeing the sameness of the two Punjabs. The Pakistani Rangers, gruff and jovial, who escorted us from the line, differed only in the style of their uniform from the amiable BSF officers who delivered us. Money-changers pursued us to exchange our Indian rupees (which commanded a premium, we realised) for Pakistan currency.
On the roadside cattle and goats munched as carefree as their owners lolling on cots outside nondescript dung plastered huts. The spoken word was Punjabi, Urdu (like our native Hindustani) being preferred for formal discourse. Chaotic traffic greets the visitor entering Lahore. Donkey carts and cyclists cut across the path of brand new Japanese cars driven by well heeled young businessmen. Our scooter rickshaws are replaced by the equally overloaded ‘Gingze’ (pronounced Chinchi)- a breed of a three-wheeler imported from China adapted to local conditions. The traffic police are inured to the prevalent laissez faire. Foreign-made motor-cycles take the place of our indigenised scooters, but the drivers do not bother to even display the mandatory helmets in their hands, as our youngsters do.
A dual economy stares us in the face in Lahore, much as it might in a Ludhiana or a Batala. A few shopping arcades liven up localities such as ‘Gulberg’ or ‘Liberty’. Here modern architecture has spawned some high-rise buildings for the corporate. Complete orderliness prevails in the cantonment, and in Model Town, where manicured public parks vie with stylish private lawns. The aristocracy is alive and well. Large landowners have invested wisely, combining enterprise in farm and commerce alike.
The landmarks of old Lahore are intact. Anarkali, with its streets so narrow that the upper floors of its buildings almost block out the sunlight, the strong lighting creating a daytime atmosphere even at midnight, not least on account of heat emitted from the lamps. The shopkeepers haggle, as they would in Mai Hiran, Jalandhar. They are delighted to receive Indian visitors. They enquire with great curiosity about the bazaars their parents had once traded in—in Patiala, Jalandhar, Amritsar.
Food Street is a gourmet’s paradise. Cheek by jowl with western-style pizza parlours are humble kulfi-sellers and kebab-wallas displaying meats exposed to the elements, as to vermin. Diverse retailers, travel agents, homoeopaths, and wonder of wonders, palmists and astrologers flourish in adjoining booths. No cause for homesickness for any in our party! Incongruities abound. Right on the bank of an open waste-water drain on the outskirts of Lahore stands the dignified government office of Director, Land Reclamation. An accurate parallel would be the office of the State Pollution Control Board astride the Hudiara drain that carries sullage from Amritsar, ironically into Pakistan territory.
Poverty is visible in the streets of Lahore. Many slums, we learn, had been relocated by the state government recently; the encroachments and hazards removed. The locals have great pride in their city. The Government College, citadel of higher education, is now a deemed University. The Forman Christian College (my father had insisted I must see his old hostel in Ewing Hall) is similarly revered, along with Kinnaird College for Women. Some famous names have been changed, as in India. The Lawrence Gardens are now Bagh- e Jinnah.