I had heard several tales about the love and respect that Lahoris had for Indians, but it was only when I found myself in their presence — perhaps the only Indian to have got the visa after 2015 — did I realise the truth of that claim
If someone had forecasted four years ago that I would celebrate my PhD submission in English Literature at Cambridge with an extraordinary trip to Pakistan, I would have laughed at the strangeness of the idea. But the idea is now a reality, and the trip is done and dusted and firmly imprinted on my mind as one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. In the middle of this year, I was selected to present a paper at a conference on the theme of ‘Art, Democracy and Tolerance’ organised by the Trust for Heritage, Art and Architecture of Pakistan (THAAP) in the city of Lahore. I was to speak on the politics of aesthetics in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s most controversial film Padmaavat, on which I had already articulated some ideas in this very newspaper way back in April. At the time of my selection, I found myself in a frenzy of writing, since my PhD on British fantasy fiction was just a few months away from the October deadline. Nonetheless, the opportunity from the city of Lahore came with a sense of excitement and wonder, paving way for a dramatic turn of events that would keep me on my toes and eventually usher in a new sense of vitality and being. For as the old Punjabi saying goes: “Jinhan Lahore nahi waikhaya o jammia hi nahi” (“One who hasn’t seen Lahore has not been born yet”).
The notion and process of acquiring a visa for Pakistan as an Indian citizen has developed an incredulous appeal about itself in popular consciousness. More than one person believed that, “Indians were not allowed to travel to Pakistan”, a near de-facto utterance that popped up when I told them that I ‘might’ soon be travelling to our neighbouring country. Other more knowledgeable folks averred: “How would I get the visa”? ‘Visa’ was mostly what I heard when I mentioned ‘Pakistan’ to any South Asian around me. Of course, the reason for such reactions was well-known, given the history of relations between the two countries. But it was still somewhat off-putting to experience the negativity inherent in that questioning, even though, on the other hand, I knew equally well that this querying was principally an expression of concern and genuine interest. Just a month before receiving my own invitation in July, media across the world was splashed with reports on India banning several Pakistani origin academics from attending a seminar in the country. I, therefore, had reasons enough to think the same way as my interrogators (“how would I get the visa”), but I still hoped that it all might just work out. There were five other Indians as well whose names appeared in the preliminary conference list, but unlike me, they would all be travelling from India to Lahore. Since I would be flying from and returning to the UK, some sympathetic souls imagined that I could be especially lucky. And so, luck did dawn, albeit with some additional drama.
On the day I received the visa from one of the private outlets of the Pakistani High Commission in London, I discovered that my passport booklet had got loosened from the spine of the cover, possibly in response to some unsophisticated handling during its checks and scans. At the moment of receiving the document, however, I was too elated by the fact that I had finally, really ‘won’ a visa after so much paperwork and coordination, which seemed nothing short of a challenging victory, given the countless tales that surrounded its procurement and the mounting pressure of the PhD. The receptionists at the collection centre for their part didn’t consider the physical deformation of my passport a big an issue either, when I made them aware of its condition. It was only later that I confirmed from relevant authorities that the passport had indeed been damaged. Annoyance and irritation entered me while another part of myself tried to keep the wildness of my imagination at bay as to ‘why’ and ‘how’ had the visa booklet got loosened. After all, I had a doctoral dissertation to submit within a month’s time, and that required its own mental energy. Applying for a new ‘tatkaal’ passport further took its time and expenses, but despite the persistent advice of well-wishers to altogether drop the idea of going, I couldn’t quite settle with their proposition, for this still seemed too precious an opportunity to lose. The greatest assurance and decisive factor, however, came from my conference organisers themselves, who not only apologised for all the unnecessary and unforeseen trouble I had to undergo, but also promised to refund me for the new passport in addition to paying for the entirety of the conference travel and accommodation. It is easy to let annoyance and irritation transform into anger, and to let that anger mutate into paranoia (to be honest, such metamorphosis is often subconscious). But here I was, having the choice to forgive the drama of damage and control, and accept the incredible generosity of my hosts, that sowed the seeds of reorienting my perspective. And in retrospect, I am only too glad that better sense prevailed and warmth won over worry.
I like to believe that the beginnings of my musical sensibilities as an amateur pianist lie in Pakistan. More than 25 years ago, my father had bought me a small toy keyboard from his first and only trip to Lahore, that I taught myself to play over the years following the age of five. That was a small ‘Casio’ model, and like so many people around me, ‘Casio’ always (and only) denoted a keyboard and nothing else, although it essentially referred to a full-fledged electronics company. Years later, the association of my neighbouring country with a refined sense of music would only intensify, and there is hardly a day now when I don’t listen to one or two numbers from the extraordinary productions of Coke Studio Pakistan (as I write this piece, the transcendental compositions of Ustad Farid Ayaz and Ustad Abu Muhammad play in the background for the umpteenth time, whom I first got to know through Coke Studio).
In the early days of television, my parents would enthusiastically record musical shows aired from Pakistan via PTV, and I still remember the countless times they viewed those programmes in the grainy, pixelated format that was then the order of the day. But if those shows, along with Coke Studio productions, demonstrated a palpably sophisticated and liberating sensibility of music entrenched in Pakistan’s cultural ethos, then Shoaib Mansoor’s exquisitely crafted 2007 Pakistani drama film, Khuda Ke Liye (In the Name of God), also showed another facet of the country, where some circles were extremely conservative about the place of music and musical joy in society. It was this duality of dispositions that eventually greeted me as I landed in Lahore within the wee hours of the beginning of November.
An hour before taking off from Heathrow in London, I learned from the conference organisers about the historic judgment on the Asia Bibi blasphemy case, that had thrown the country in turmoil and forced the cancellation of the conference inauguration on the first day, since the venue lay in a “high risk area”. Meanwhile, my accommodation had also been changed, and mobile networks had been completely shut down for two days. I could sense that the drama that had begun with my passport had no plans of abating, and so I entered the country to find it in a storm of anger and violence. Islamist hardliners raged across different parts of Lahore, protesting against the acquittal of the Christian woman over a nine-year-old alleged profanity, and with this, I received a slice of fundamentalism that typically characterises much popular opinion about Pakistan the world over. But after the cancellation of the inauguration, the conference nonetheless began on the second day, and along with it evolved a completely different image of the nation and its citizens, one that was rooted in congeniality, kindness, and a hospitality that simply has no parallel.
As extremists took over the streets outside, not very far from our venue, a motley group of speakers predominantly from Pakistan and handful from other countries (Austria, Australia, Indonesia, and India) discussed a wide array of ideas and practices under the selected theme of ‘art, democracy, and tolerance’, in what has to be the most intimate of all conferences I have ever attended. It took some time to adjust to the fact that the event was being held in the beautiful drawing room of my hosts, Professor Pervaiz Vandal and his wife Professor Sajida Haider Vandal, for I was used to the rather impersonal settings that typically define academic assemblages. Not so here. The papers ranged from topics concentrating on the beginnings of liberal and secular thought in both the West and East, to commentaries on Sufi saints, Mughal emperors’ secular practices, contemporary conservation strategies in architecture and heritage management, and creative methods of engaging common audiences in developing artistic and democratic consciousness in a variety of contexts. Throughout the event, I couldn’t help but think of the irony springing from the imbalance between what we were all collectively engaged in versus what was happening outside. After every two presentations, a sprawling layout of food and beverages greeted us in the leafy backyard of the Vandal home, where I was greeted with a warmth that is hard to define. I learned that I was the only Indian to have got the visa after 2015, even though THAAP (the organisation) had been selecting numerous Indians every year. It was then that I truly realised how lucky I was to be present there. But this sense of good fortune increased many times over once I mingled with the sundry Pakistanis present at the event (which was open to the public), from students to lecturers and other professionals. Before leaving for the conference, I had heard several tales almost bordering on the legendary about the love and respect that Lahoris had for Indians, but it was only when I found myself in their presence did I realise the truth of that claim.
As Pervaiz sa’ab introduced me to the gathering as the sole Indian present (who had managed to get a ‘visa’, for the word ‘visa’ was still circulating), a number of people from all ages stood up to welcome me individually, shaking hands and hugging me like a long lost friend now returning home. I heard several other visa-related stories too from this side of the border, even as the Pakistanis expressed heartfelt concern and genuine sympathy for what had transpired with regard to my passport. During lunches and teas, some students conveyed their desire to share food from the same plate as mine as a mark of respect and love, while another, after my presentation, became visibly emotional and offered his watch as a gift of brotherhood in addition to apologising for not having anything “proper” to give me.
Then, owing to the theme of my paper, yet another group of students happily approached me to ‘guide’ them on a film assignment, and I had a rather joyful time holding an impromptu session there and then. While making such connections, every second person intoned his or her sadness regarding the political enmity between the two nations, a visceral emotion that also seemed to erupt as a desire to prove that their country had another side to it that had nothing to do with the largely negative, ‘terrorist’ image that still floated so freely. At such moments, I was reminded of many similar testimonies from Pakistani youth whose writings I was privileged to examine as a final panel jury member of the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Writing Competition in 2016 and 2017, the world’s largest literary contest for school children (incidentally, this year’s senior winner from a total of 12,000 young people across 53 countries hails from Lahore). With this enormously profound culture of warmth and bonhomie that never ceased to move me, all my apprehensions regarding my own paper also got dispelled, for I was to argue against the interpretations that rendered Bhansali’s Padmaavat and the director himself as Islamophobic and misogynist — a position I had already chalked out in a concise form in this newspaper. This is not to say that there weren’t people who disagreed with my analysis, but rather to point out that the setting I found myself in was as liberal and conducive to my ideas as any other. Even though I had read articles earlier this year on how a number of Pakistanis were deeply offended by the filmmaker’s portrayals of Islamic culture, my own experiences at the conference proved otherwise, for with its diversity of people, the event demonstrated that there simply was no ‘one’ Pakistani identity that informed an opinion, and that fresh analytical standpoints always held the power to initiate newer ways of thinking (notwithstanding the disagreements) if provided a safe and peaceful environment (like the conference itself).
I had been drawn to Bhansali’s cinema for a long time before Padmaavat, not because of its grandiosity but because of its eclecticism that I could trace in every film of his oeuvre. My favourite was and still remains the box-office flop Saawariya, and I continue to get enchanted by its marvellous juxtaposition of multi-faith imagery, with Buddhist statues sitting comfortably in the presence of Islamic calligraphy and Christian architecture. It was precisely this microcosm of inter-religious aesthetic that I experienced when I visited Cooco’s Den, one of the most famous restaurants of Lahore that is located in the city’s famous Food Street, which I randomly chanced upon with a newly made conference friend Adnan, who was extremely excited to show me around the city and introduce me to other Lahoris. Reaching the restaurant’s terrace left me speechless for a while as I soaked in the grandness of the 17th Century Badshahi Mosque sitting majestically at a distance, while the architecture and décor of the eatery itself paid homage to Buddhism, Christianity, and Hinduism. As we walked through the Food Street, the connections with Saawariya became even more apparent as I learned that the area historically served as Lahore’s red light district where erstwhile princes and aristocrats would come to learn tehzeeb (mannerisms) from courtesans, a point well illustrated in several early Hindi films and then memorialised by Bhansali’s venture. Returning to the hotel, I was further thrilled to read the news that the director might be eyeing the Heera Mandi area for his next film, for that was the other name of the place I had visited only a few hours earlier. In retrospect, it feels nothing short of magical that I had come to Pakistan to deliver a paper on Padmaavat and would leave it having taken a slice of the inspirational context for my favourite director’s next venture.
It was in the setting of Cooco’s Den that I had a long conversation with Adnan and another friend of his on religious identity. This other friend was a Hindu, who had recently shifted to Lahore from Sindh, and it was instructive to learn the disturbing stories of discrimination he had been facing in the new city. He told me about the times that he had to hide behind his religion-neutral surname to avert discrimination on the basis of his first, Hindu-sounding name. But after speaking poignantly about his plight, it was equally moving to hear him narrate a number of other stories as well which shed light on some extraordinary moments when his close Muslim friends and teachers had come to his defence in order to combat bigotry from other Muslims. One such friend was sitting in our midst itself (Adnan), patiently and sympathetically listening to his friend’s experiences, and his demeanour was a living testimony to the idea of tolerance that we had been debating in the conference. In this short, one-week visit then, I had got the rare opportunity to interact with the minority communities of Pakistan as well, which included the conference driver who was ferrying me back and forth from the event, who had similarly expressed fear as a Christian, particularly in light of the recent judgment’s aftermath. But like the Hindu man’s bonding with Adnan, this driver too shared a wonderfully convivial relationship with other members of THAAP, all mostly Muslim, and that friendship again gave me hope and happiness.
In the days that followed, it was this practice of friendship that continuously got intensified with all the people I met. After the conference, I shifted to another beautiful location where I was being hosted by my wonderful friends, Sahar and Fazal Khan, whom I had first met in Cambridge three years ago. Like the people at the conference, Sahar and Fazal’s hospitality too moved me to tears as they left no stone unturned to make my stay a most comfortable one. It was with them that I ‘formally’ celebrated my PhD submission dinner, which they grandly organised at the Lahore Gymkhana, as well as the Diwali meal. When Fazal drove me across the lanes of Lahore in his car, just like Adnan had driven me on his bike, there were countless moments when I couldn’t quite pinpoint whether I was in Pakistan or India: It was all so like home. Connections continued to mushroom as my walk outside the Lahore Museum brought back the introductory pages from Rudyard Kipling’s Kim that I had first read in Class V, and the gorgeous murals and stonework at the Lahore Fort and Jahangir’s Tomb evoked the fine craftsmanship of the Mughals and Sikhs in India. I was also fortunate to meet Ryan, a young British whom I had known only cursorily in Cambridge, who had decided to devote two years of his life teaching in a local school here, for he had fallen in love with Lahore when he first visited it. Like him, I too had assimilated myself in the people around me, and by the middle of my week-long stay, I was comfortable doing a gesture that oddly combined Namaste with As-Salaam-Alaikum (‘Peace be unto you’). As I got ready for my farewell in the early hours of November 8, Sahar and Fazal prepared a delicious Diwali dinner, and I happily WhatsApped a photograph of the Badshahi Masjid to my friends and family in the manner of a festival card.
After my father had returned from Lahore a quarter of a century ago, he often used to say: “Unhone humein palkon par hi bitha kar nahi rakha, unhone palkein jhapkaai tak nahi”, something which I find difficult to translate, but which loosely means that “not only did the Lahoris treat us with exquisite care, their treatment also never wavered for a bit”. Years later, I can safely say that the saying holds incredibly true, and that my visit does feel like a rebirth of sorts (Jinhan Lahore nahi waikhaya o jammia hi nahi). I am privileged to have travelled to the ‘Land of the Pure’, and in the hope of peace and friendship, here’s to Lahore, with love.
The writer submitted his PhD in English and Materiality Studies at Cambridge before setting off for Lahore, and will join the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, as a Research Scholar in Global History during the summer of 2019
