theme of this trip. Yesterday and today have been
quite uneventful... in bed with fever and chills, and
one short non-productive trip to the Ministry of
Interior to check the status of my visa extension. Of
course, it would be too much if the concerned folks
were actually there or someone who also had the
authority to tell me whats happenin'!
Anyways, before this, I got to go and see Nankana
Sahib Gurudwara, which seemed pretty bare but packs up
around Baisakhi time. Apparently it goes from the
three or four turbans I saw to so many that from an
aerial shot you cannot tell where the marble floor is!
A chance meeting of the Delhi Rotary Club delegation
and their (appropriately named )host, Dilshaad Shah,
led to an adventure with Dilshaad the following day to
two of my ancestral villages.
I'm not sure how far back one has to go for a village to be ancestral but I
figure the house where at-least my great-great-grandfather grew up qualifies in these times. Our trip to Bhaun and Murid were filled with love-filled embraces from people who remembered not necessarily my grandparents but Sikhs like them and missed their company post-partition. I cannot help but think of the millions that perished not only in the Indo-Pak partition violence but in the cross border journey. It was a weird, not necessarily disturbing sensation watching Hindu Mandirs and Sikh Gurudwaras now converted to houses.
Many things happened during Partition and although those wounds may have never completely healed, I felt nothing but love for having visited. It was incredible how many people went out of their way and showed us around.
Chachaji Fateh Khan, a
burly dark stocky many with a massive turban which
looks like its constantly fighting a battle with
gravity and winning, took more than 6 hours just to
show us around from village to village AND tea at the
local truck stop. And this just after asking him for
directions! Thanks to Dilshaad Hussain Shah and also
to Munna Bhai (not from the movie) who took me for the
coolest tour of Purana Qilla in Rawalpindi on a
needle-haystack search of my great-grandfather's IRAN
HOUSE store!
So, now the plan is to go to Lahore tomorrow and move
onto India a few days later. Inshahallah!
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