[sacw] Crossing the Indo Pak Border

[Harsh Kapoor]

FYI
(South Asia Citizens web)
==========================
From: the Indian Daily, Saturday 20 February 1999

A Wagah Crossing

By SURESH CHOPRA

THIS is the story of an annual `war', fought between two Indian and
Pakistani war veterans, whose villages adjoin the international border off
Wagah.
I chanced upon this `war' during a crossing in the winter of 1992 while
returning from a holiday in India to my posting in Islamabad. As I
approached the customs checkpost on the Pak side to get myself and my car
cleared, the officer-in-charge, who was soaking in the winter sun, shook
his head and smiled.
Pointing skywards, he said in chaste Punjabi, ``Sahibji, how wonderful it
would be if we could settle our scores like that.'' Looking in the
direction of his finger, I sighted two very large and impressive kites
swaying high up in the sky. While one of the kites bore the Pakistani flag
emblem of a crescent moon and star, the other had the saffron, green and
white of my country's tricolour.
The officer pointed to the huge crowd that had gathered some distance away
just outside the customs area. ``They are from Lahore and nearby places.
There must be a big crowd on your side also?''
I nodded, recalling the unusually large turnout on the GT Road just short
of Wagah on the Amritsar side. The Pak customs man then narrated the
background: There were these two soldiers whose families had been quite
close in the pre-partition days. Then came Mr Radcliffe, who drew a line
down the map and placed the families in two separate countries.
It so happened that two young men, one from each of the families, had
played together as little boys at the time of Partition. They grew up,
joined their respective armies and, as luck would have it, their regiments
fought a pitched battle in the Chaamb-Jaurian sector in 1971.
Thereafter, they took to sending up a kite each, carrying their respective
country's flag emblems, around this time every year; and they would have
their private war, in which they would try to knock the other fellow's kite
in a fiercely fought `pencha'.
``What is the score'', I asked the customs man.
He gave me a broad grin. ``Today is a special day. There have been 20 such
kite-fights till now. Both sides have won 10 each. Let's see what happens
today.'' I wanted to stay and see how the `war' ended. But I was in a hurry
to get moving in the direction of Lahore, en route to Islamabad.
I had barely travelled a couple of kilometres when, just off the famous
Ichchogil Canal (of the 1965 Indo-Pak war fame), I heard a loud pop
announcing a puncture.
I had just finished replacing the flat tyre and gone down to the canal to
clean my hands, when I heard a series of shouts. It was obvious that the
kite `war' had come to an end.
I gazed upwards and the sight that met my eyes was unforgettable.
Fluttering downwards was the Pak kite. I ran along the canal, and there I
saw it: Our tricolour swaying proud and graceful in the sky. And, that too,
the Pakistani sky.

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