A love that extends the human bond

I have never been made to feel more welcome anywhere than I have in these last two days in Lahore. I came to Pakistan after spirit-sapping struggles for visas, flights and accreditation, but tingling with that wonderful, rollercoaster sense of the unknown. I had read a bit, talked a bit, wondered a lot. In these two days, full of so many little things, I have been touched deeper than I had imagined.

Diaspora everywhere nurture a strong attachment, a hospitability towards their own, that is true. But diaspora is far too simple an analogy for India and Pakistan. This is more. This is the peace process which may never be allowed to blossom.

I find it hard to articulate the sort of love the man of the street in Pakistan reserves for an Indian. It is a twinkle in the eye, a warm glow, an insistence to help, to feed, to organise, to extend fully in every possible way what we soppily refer to as the human bond. Maybe Saqlainji, the manager of my hotel, puts it best whenever he says "Aap hamaare hain. (You are ours)" Last night I was introduced by Saqlain to a policeman: "Yeh hain Rahul Bhattacharya," - we shook hands - "my friend from India" - he locked me in an embrace, and ordered me a Coke. Later Saqlain took me out for a ravishing midnight meal on the streets.

Today, the Indian cricket team arrived here. On the way to the airport I asked the taxi driver if the airconditioner could come on. He said it didn't work. A few minutes later he discovered I'm from India. He turned on the a/c, apologized profusely, and explained how the `minister log' from both sides are estranging the people.

Curiously, there has been barely any anticipation on the street either for the cricket, or for the arrival. Only on television is the hype really felt; it reflects in many ways the reality of international cricket.

For a big city, Lahore's international airport is possibly unique in two things: in being named after a poet, and in that there is no hustle-bustle, no crowd, no trolley-racing, no life-must-be-maximised busyness. Did the team arrival change things? Not much.

Admittedly, all other flights had been rescheduled around this one. There were, say, 400-500 people at the airport. Two-thirds of these were security in their many-splendoured varieties, to which we shall come, and photographers and cameramen. A fair part of the remaining were those at the airport for their own reasons. That left a tiny minority, those who had come to glimpse the Indian team. Some never got past the initial security barriers to the airport.

The security. There was the airport security staff. There was the Lahore Police. There was the Elite Police Force, in their slick black jeeps, who sport the slogan No Fear on the backs of their T-shirts. There was the Mujahid Police Force. There were plainclothes policemen. The Indian team is said to be travelling with three security personnel of their own. And at the Gaddafi will be the formidable Frontier Constabulary. (A big banner instatlled inside the dressing rooms declares the ICC Anti-Corruption Unit hotline number).

Slowly, the occasion heightened on this hot day in Lahore, though never too much. In a wicked twist, the team exited from the Departure area, one level above the Arrival zone. Out they came, led by manager and captain. Ganguly smiled, Laxman beamed, Kaif chatted amiably, Andrew Leipus and Dravid filmed, Sehwag looked vacant and unbothered, Kartik looked wise, Sachin in his lavender-tint sunglasses was so surrounded that he looked like the centre of a flower. Swiftly they got on to the bus and off they went with a horn that sounded like a conch; a jeep and a motorcycle before them, four jeeps, half-a-dozen motorcycles and a fire engine behind them.

I wondered if the two adorable little girls, brought to the airport by their mother who lived in Patna before marriage, got to show off their posters to the team. One of them read "Main apne Hindustani mama ka swagatam karti hoon (I welcome my uncles from India)".

Downstairs I met a man who had come in from Sialkot. "Chalee gayee team? (Has the team left?)" he asked, still bewildered that one big coach and some security (all decoys) were still stationed at the Departure gates. He could not stay until tomorrow, so Shakeel will travel four hours back to Sialkot. It is how it is.

At a press conference at the hotel, Ganguly spoke hard words about playing to win. This goodwill business, he said, is not something he is taken in too much by. It is a reasonable stance, for there is much to lose. But if there is one thing I can say from the past two days it is that it will be difficult for him not to be touched by the goodwill. The real fear is not here in Pakistan, but of those of his own countrymen who cannot stomach the notion of coming second in a game of bat and ball.