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Bonhomie fever triggered a lot of interaction. But one reaction I always heard was about how similar everything was on the other side of Radcliffe line. The ‘other’ side depended upon which side you were on, but the reaction was similar. This piece in The Times of India was written the day Pakistani delegates crossed over from Wagah border into India for the World Punjabi Conference in Patiala.

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	“Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment.” Charles Lamb, 1833 "Frankly, despite my horror of the press, I’d love to rise from the grave every ten years or so and go buy a few newspapers." Luis Buñuel, Spanish filmmaker "I often wonder what future historians will say about us. One sentence will suffice to describe modern man: he fornicated and he read newspapers." Albert Camus, French novelist, dramatist, philosopher, 1956

Lahore and Patiala, same-to-same Janab. Khush'amdeed

S P Singh

Chandigarh:

Folks, everything has gone wrong. This morning, Punjab took off from Lahore, and was headed abroad. Instead it landed home. Surprised by the usual. Surprisingly usual. And they were told they were going to India. Well, welcome home.

For us here, how boringly usual can usual be? But then ask them, how thrillingly surprising the usual is! "It's all same-to-same," said the over 100-odd delegates who crossed over at Wagah for the December 1-3 World Punjabi Conference at Patiala.

Even the roadside puncture-wallah hangs the tyre atop the tree the same way! And the danda-wielding cop by the roadside is equally brusque. Kanta Laga-Chadti Jawani is about as famous in Lahore as Shafqat Ali-Iqbal Bahu in Patiala.

If only the heart does not skip that beat – God! why does it happen everytime – when anyone crosses the white strip painted across the black asphalt road at Wagah, you would never know you are now "abroad".

But then where's "abroad"? Home, of course.

"Pakistan hi lagda ji, lagda hi nahi India aaye han. I am near Ludhiana now, on my way to Patiala, but I feel as if I am travelling from Lahore to Islamabad," Dr Amjad Bhatti, a Lahori working at Islamic University, Islamabad said. And he wasn’t disappointed. After all, it is all same-to-same, to use the patented sub-continental cliche which is, you guessed it, same-to-same on both sides of the border.

Bhatti was among over 100 participants at the WPC who crossed the Radcliffe line. "I encounter the same comments everytime, but I enjoy these everytime someone accompanies me from Lahore to Amritsar or any other place," said Fakhar Zaman, chairman of World Punjabi Congress who has persevered for two decades for Punjab-to-Punjab contacts, and finally succeeded in getting CM Amarinder Singh to cross over into Lahore and history, simultaneously, early this year for a WPC at Lahore.

History won’t reverse; it is moving forward. In another 48 hours, West Punjab Chief Minister Parvaiz Elahi will crossover to this side, and Amarinder will be hosting him at Patiala. Just hope he doesn't find Motibagh Palace same-to-same.

Elahi is already rooting for visas right at the border. And today, Fakhar Zaman said why have visas at all. Make it visa free. So more people will chant ‘same-to-same’. "Maqsood Sahib, they will make it completely like home at this rate," someone told the editor of Lahore-based Pancham magazine. "Changi gal hai yaar, bana diyo ikko ghar," Baba Sidtul Hazal Zaigam said.

"But why are you crying?" I asked Amjad Bhatti. "People do when they come home,” he snapped. Welcome home. It’ll be wonderful to see a Lahore in Patiala. And tell you what, it’ll never be same-to-same. We are moving forward.■

November 23, 2004

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Channing Pollock, in his autobiography, Harvest of My Years, tells the story of a train acquaintanceship made on his first journey, when he was fourteen, His fellow passenger, a stockily built man, took an interest in his youthful views on Byron and Dickens. Finally, he inquired, “Have you ever read Sherlock Holmes?” Don’t you think,” said Pollock pontifically, “that detective stories are a waste of time?” “No, I don’t,” said the stranger. “You see, I write them. My name is A.Conan Doyle.”

Any man who, at the age of eighty-eight, can dismiss a visitor with a chirpy, “Get along with you now; I’m fully two years behind in my work as it is,” is a force to be reckoned with. That’s what George Bernard told his lawyer Morris Ernst when he came visiting.

When Clifton Fadiman was serving editor for Simon and Schuster, he opened one manuscript that consisted entirely of nudes of a Miss Jones. She wanted to sell the idea of a series of Yogic exercises in book form. Fadiman’s one-line report was, “I see nothing in this manuscript except Miss Jones.”

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