We asked for permission to cross the border on foot or by car, but were told that Indians and Pakistanis could not do this.
Taking off from Lahore airport, if the plane veers westwards, on a clear day you can see the border fence between India and Pakistan stretching out below. It is quite an impressive sight, this wriggly black line cutting through the landscape—a clear divider, daring the world to challenge it. It is not a defensive sort of fence, nor is it impassive. By its very design, it stands true to its purpose of unrelenting animosity, almost shouting out the message: never shall we compromise. This fence maintains every iota of the belligerence, viciousness and mistrust that went into its construction.
And what you see from the sky is an uneven, jagged line, cutting the harmony of a continuous landscape into two disfigured halves. This is not the sort of wall you get in fairy tales, which divides the kingdom of the good witch from that of the bad, although I suppose many see it that way. This wall means business. It celebrates 50 years of hatred, bitterness and enmity.
At night, it looks even more dramatic. Flying through pitch blackness, suddenly the darkness is pierced by glaring bright lights, blazing coldly in defiance of all notions of friendship, tolerance, even logic and humanity. And as you cross over this symbol of eternal war, is there anyone whose heart is not sucked dry, emptied of all hope and light? For here is a monument erected in cold iron and barbed wire, commemorating the day when sanity went off on a tangent.