I am a Punjabi ( hindu/sikh) . I belong to a small town near Amritsar.Last year, I had the opportunity of going to Wagah Border to see the Flag ceremony. The land and people on the either side of the fence were no different.I could not help but wonder why did punjab( Indian) choose to be a part of India rather than Pakistan or Viceversa for Pakistan punjab....Punjab has its own unique culture which is very similar on either side of the fence to the best of my knowledge.
What I do not understand is why a state like Punjab has to be paired up with other places like tamil naidu or assam.I do not speak tamil,do not understand their culture and probably will never go there since we are 2000kms apart from each other.I do respect all the cultures and I think everyone should be proud of their identity.But I find it extremely weird that on one hand punjab is clubbed with Assam which is culturally so different and on the other hand a place which is 90% similar and only 50 miles away i m not allowed to visit.
It is not even a question of religious tolerance as before partition muslim,hindus and sikhs used to live together and still do in India. Even right now there is a town 10 kms away from my place where every sign post or advertisement board is written in urdu...and we live happily together( i cannot read urdu). the elders in my village elders(really old guns) always share their fond memories of pre partition days,Lahore features unequivocally in almost all of these conversations i must say. will visit lahore for sure one day.have to see what is all the hype about.after all its not made of gold.is it.lol
Two years I had to come to canada due to obvious reasons.I met so many people from Punjab(pakistan) and we get along so well.Lahoris are not very fond of Karachiites i learnt.lol
When u think about it India was most prosperous before it was India.............
For me Amritsar is my lost Jerusalem and I am its wailing wall. I do not remember anything about Amritsar. Remembers he who forgets. Amritsar circulates in my blood. I go to sleep after looking at Amritsar and the first thing I see it after waking up in the morning. When I walk the Company Bagh accompanies me. When I sit the Secretary Baghs trees provide me with a shadow. When I speak I can hear the calls to prayers from Amritsar mosques. When I am quiet water from Amritsar canals passes by me, whispering. I look at one of my hands and find streets of my neighborhood sleeping on it. I look at the other hand and see all the flowers, trees and spring breezes sitting on it, smiling. An Amritsar-bound friend asked me recently what he should bring for me. I told him to get me a flower from the Company Bagh.
This is A. Hameed who was born in Amritsar circa 1928 but gained his adulthood in Lahore. He did not distinguish one city from the other. He loved both. Until Partition they were twin cities hardly 30 miles apart. A train ran between the two ferrying workers from one side to the other. Hameed took this Babu Train to Lahore often without a ticket and enjoyed breaking the law.
After the Partition of the subcontinent, he along with his family moved to Lahore where the queen of his romantic thoughts lived. In First Day in Pakistan he describes his migration without the age-old prejudices that caused it. On the deserted and fire-stricken morning of August 14, 1947, we said goodbye for good to Amritsar and boarded the Lahore-bound Howrah Express
.People of Lahore were serving dal and roti to refugees on every platform of the railway station
..Do not go through the overhead bridge, Sikhs are firing from Gurdwara Shaheed Gunj, the volunteers warned us. We were surprised that Lahorites could not expel Sikhs from here
. a speeding wagon filled with scared Hindu and Sikh women and children took a turn to Empress Road. In the meantime, a young and handsome Sikh donning a dark brown turban appeared from nowhere. His death had drawn him there. As he neared our camp, a boy picked up a double brick from the ground and hurled it toward one of his temples. An attaché case he was carrying fell down and its contents scattered on the road. They included red glass bangles he had perhaps brought from Ludhiana, Jullundhar, Patiala or Hoshiarpore for his sister, fiancé, sister-in-law or wife as a gift
.We stayed in Wassanpora for a few days and then moved to an evacuee house in Faiz Bagh. Its upper story had been allotted to us. When it rained during the nights, the roof seeped. We would place empty utensils at various places and spend the night listening to the music (jaltrang ) of the rain drops. After the day break, we would find slush all over in the streets. No one had found a job to do. The neighborhood committee of (Muslim) League would dole us and other refugees atta free. This ration too stopped after two weeks and the family faced its first starvation. I had not started writing yet. I wrote an article for newspaper Ehsan. It got published but brought not a farthing in return. In the meantime my younger brother got an order of preparing a business sign from a bakery shop in Delhi Gate with twenty rupees as a down payment. It brought flour home and everybody thanked God
. One evening I was sitting on the front plank of a closed shop along with my friend from Amrirsar, Iqbal Kausar. We heard an announcement over the radio from a hotel across the street. This is Pakistan Broadcasting Service. Earlier, we had always heard All India Radio Lahore. This is Pakistan Broadcasting Service. It felt good. We were convinced we are sitting in our own country.
A. Hameed was a member of a large number of intellectuals who migrated from Amritsar to Lahore. They included Saif-ud-Din Saif, Arif Abdul Mateen, Zabt Qureshi, Zaheer Kashmiri, Ahmed Rahi, Hassan Tariq and Muazaffar Ali Syed. We jokingly called the breed Amritsari school of thought. One of them, Ahmed Mushtaq, lives in Houston, Texas. He too called Hameed frequently. I talked to Hameed a day before he was admitted to the hospital on March 5. He would never admit he was seriously ill. His wife did. In one of these conversations he told me that he intends to write an autobiography and a biography of Manto in a crisp voice which negated his age. He believed in defying death. O Bullia Asan Marna Nahin, Gor Pia Koi Hor. (O Bulla, one is not to die, lies in the grave some other soul.)
When I read Raavn Post, the next i remember A. Hameed in my mind who is just stuck thier since my childhood....I'm addicted to his way of writting for quite sometime and he never leaves my haert ever....!!!
So without going into the politics...i reciprocate the gesture showed by raavan towards my land by showing him what old ordinary Amritsary feels about their city who they once left...!!
Above is an abstract from and admirer of him after his death in April 2011!!