In November last year (2006) I visited Lahore, as a guest of the Pakistan Association of Pathologists to deliver the keynote address at their annual convention. This is my account of that visit.

 I was taken aback by the Islamic prayers at the onset of the PIA flight from Delhi to Lahore but as soon as I landed at the sleek Allama Iqbal airport, I murmured (Sare Jahan se accha, Hindostan hamara, written by Iqbal).Suddenly it felt like home. Lahore felt like a vibrant, alive, city with a nice mixture of Bhai Ram Singh's fusion (Moghul plus Sikh) architecture and contemporary architecture.

That night there was a dinner hosted by the leadership of the Pakistan Association of Pathologist. They were an academic group, many educated abroad, and from all over Pakistan. We started with polite conversation, first in English, then in Urdu ( I speak that well) and then realizing that most around me spoke/understood Punjabi, without any warning, I switched to chaste Punjabi. The effect of this change in language was palpable.. Suddenly I became one of them and we started chatting as if we were old friends.

Conversation moved from polite to serious, including questions like

"How has the US changed after 9/11?"

"What happened to Khalistan movement in India? How did it die down?"

"Are the Sikhs happy in India?"

"How did India and Pakistan, starting from the same base, become so different over the years?"

"Why can't Pakistan learn democracy (Jumbhooriyat) from India?"

Here we were, citizens of countries that had fought wars, yet within 30 minutes, there were no barriers. They trusted me to be honest in my answers and I trusted the sincerity of their questions.

As we finished dinner and were leaving the restaurant, the manager greeted us and my hosts took pains to tell him who I was and where I had come from and the manager "clicked" his heels as if I were a General. As I checked into my hotel I knew that the front desk was taking extraordinary care to make me feel comfortable.

Next morning, I had to deliver my lecture and was driven to the Convention center just a block away. Many of the senior pathologists who had dinner with me greeted me there. After a long introduction that could not have been improved upon by my dear departed mother, I went to the podium and after thanking the organizers in English. I asked "permission" to offer the rest of my thanks in Punjabi. This is a crude translation of what I said in Punjabi:

"I want to thank you all for three things this morning. When I landed last night at the Allama Iqbal airport (and was met by Dr Chughtai), I felt as if there was some fragrance ("Khushboo") nearby. I assumed that some lady wearing a perfume must be passing by. But the fragrance remained even after I sat in the car and it persisted, I then realized it was the fragrance of the air of Lahore. Last night as I went to bed, I did not want to sleep since I was afraid that I would "lose" that many hours of fragrance, so I slept very little. Thank you first for the "fragrance of Lahore".

Second, I want to thank the city of Lahore for having trained excellent physicians and sent them to Chicago where I have the pleasure of working with some of them.

Thirdly, as I travel and lecture all over the world, I do get a lot of respect and attention but only in Lahore do I feel not just respect but genuine affection.. Thank you for that "Pyaar and Mohabbat..."

Everything I said was truthful and sincere and (trust me) I did not craft this part of my presentation in advance but literally on the spot, and the audience of doctors and medical students could all feel it.

I will conclude this part of my travelogue (more to come, as I get time) by observing that if one scratches beneath the veneer of mistrust and suspicion, there is a deep and genuine sense of kinship. There is the satisfaction of being able to speak the same language, the same idiom, the same gestures. There is longing for what could have been and faith that it can still happen.

Perhaps, I am delusional but I got the clear sense, perhaps not in words but in spirit, that most with whom I interacted had rejected the two nation theory. Our similarities are overwhelming, our differences are trivial.

Lest anyone think that this was the response from an educated, "liberal" group, please wait for the next two installments of my diary where I will relate my encounters with "ordinary" young (and poor) Pakistanis, who knew nothing of my medical background and with the (refugee) family that moved into my grandfather's house in Okara. That family had suffered atrocities at the hands of Hindus and Sikhs in 1947 as they migrated from Gurdaspur in India to Okara, Pakistan.

 Acknowledgement  : http://www.asiapeace.org

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