A Borderline Case

by Charukesi Ramadurai

Charukesi Ramadurai visits the Wagah border and comes away shaken and stirred in equal measure...

Shouldn't we take a book to read since we are going to be reaching so early? I wondered aloud. I had imagined us getting there well before it was to begin, walking gracefully up the gallery to find seats that gave us the best view. I had a pretty picture in my mind of a few hundred people sitting there patiently, waiting for the ceremony, a dignified silence hanging in the air. I actually expected no-man's land to be different, somehow feel different.

Drama Queen, that is what I was, imagining all this. I mean, India and Pakistan and I expected people to behave normally and rationally. You would almost think I had never watched any cricket.

We left Amritsar at four in the afternoon, early enough, I thought, for a journey of forty minutes, for an event that was to begin at six. Milestones at regular intervals indicated just how close Lahore was, with its famous Anarkali bazaar and Shalimar gardens. Within fifteen minutes, the heat and dust of the city had given way to the lush, green open spaces of the countryside that we have seen in countless Hindi movies. I half expected to see a gorgeous woman in a sheer yellow chiffon sari running through the fields (I did admit I am a Drama Queen).

We were going to Wagah, the border between India and Pakistan, to watch the retreat ceremony, during which soldiers from both countries take part in a parade on their respective sides before lowering their countries' flag to mark the end of another day. At that time, I had no clear expectations from the ceremony; I was going partly because it was the thing to do when in Amritsar and partly because I was curious about a ceremony I had heard described as a "theatre of war." Today a nondescript village, Wagah is a significant blip in the subcontinent's history, being a place through which the destructive Radcliffe line was drawn.

The area near the car park was like a mela in any small town in India: hot and cold snacks, mineral water bottles, DVDs of the entire ceremony, trumpets and whistles, balloons and little flags—Buy them now, you will not find anything inside... The little boy selling the flags pursued us for a few hundred meters—Buy it, didi, there is a lot of comptisun inside between them and us.

Them and us. From the mouth of an eight-year-old. That should have warned me. But scarily, it sounded right in that atmosphere.

Leaving the car park, we joined the crowd walking towards the border. It felt for a minute like I was back in Bombay, getting jostled and pushed by the mob at Dadar station. The military man who checked our bag pointed to the wallet and camera and advised us to be wary of pickpockets.

And so we were pushed along until we reached the actual border, the stage for one of the grandest politico-military spectacles ever. There must have been over three thousand people by the time we got there, and it was well over an hour before the ceremony was to begin (apparently there were over ten thousand people on this side of the border on August 15th, 2008). Bumping our way up the steps, we reached the viewing galleries, only to find them overflowing. People had already started climbing lampposts and railings for a view—not a better view, just a view. Finding some empty space in the "ladies gallery," my husband pushed me towards it and stood standing at the very back until the end.

This is how I found myself sandwiched between a newly married pretty Punjaban, miles of red choodi intact on her wrists, and a six-year-old wearing a tricolor paper cap that she kept playing with throughout. I thought briefly about the kinds of people I could see at a hazy distance on galleries on the other side of the gate; were there mothers in pink salwar kameez who had grown up in Amritsar with little daughters who have not seen anything beyond Lahore? Or seventy-year-old men with fuzzy memories of crossing the same border along with thousands of others in the heat and dust of mid-August?


Let the Show Begin

As the crowd continued to swell, the restlessness in the air became more and more palpable; let the show begin, I say! It did, though it was not the kind of show I had expected.

It started innocently enough with a man in civvies handing over the national flag to a couple of young girls in school uniform, asking them to run to the border and return with the flag flying high in the evening breeze. And from there it took off, people queuing up in pairs, shoving to get to the top of the line, much as I imagined the poor animals did to get on to the Ark. Girls, boys, old men, even a couple of foreigners shouting Hindoo-stan Zind-a-badd—it went on for a full fifteen minutes. You know how kids dare each other to go touch the gate of the haunted house at the end of the street? Yes, that is what this reminded me of.

And then it was time for the party to start. It did, with the loudspeakers blaring, Suno gaur se duniya walo... Sabse aage honge Hindustani (We Indians will be ahead of everything!), and a bunch of girls walked up to the street to dance. By the time I managed to pick up my dropped jaw and focus the camera, a dozen others had joined in, men and women. The music went on to Bhagat Singh singing "Rang De Basanti" and "I Love My India" from Pardes. Patriotism was partying hard on the border; so much for the sober silent ceremony I had envisioned.



The astounding thing about it is that the entire show was managed carefully by the maniacal grinning man in civvies who had first handed out the national flag to the girls. Never had an emcee been so hysterically happy and loud since Annu Kapoor in the middling days of Zee Antakshari. He grinned and waved and jumped and shouted and kept the energy levels tiringly high. Hindustan...? He would shout into the mike, and a few thousand voices would thunder in reply: Zindabad! At which he would mime, Cannot hear... and the crowds would yell even louder (a thing I would not have believed possible), ZINDABAD!! Bharat Mata ki... JAI! I strained my ears to catch similar sounds coming from the other side of the border but it sounded eerily quiet to me.

And so we went on until it was almost time for the sun to set. The jawans had taken position and the emcee had finally stopped his antics. There was no sudden hush of anticipation—the crowd kept up its noise levels even as one of the soldiers started shouting his commands into the mike (oh, it was my big evening for shattered illusions). The crowd kept cheering and clapping, up on their feet, straining to catch the action, as the jawans marched briskly towards the gate, soldiers from the other side mirroring their actions.

As we all watched, the flags on either side of the border were slowly pulled down, and at every moment, each was exactly on par with the other, not an inch higher or lower. The sun was just setting on Pakistan soil, turning the sky into a vivid orange, a color as vibrant as the scene in progress. As I sat there waiting for that lump in my throat, the flags were down and the soldiers were carrying them reverently back to the office to be put away for the night. The border was officially closed for the day. The moment had come and gone and I missed it?

The amount of controlled aggression that is poured into each of the movements of the soldiers is terrifying. There are no simple crisp commands barked into the microphone; each call is thunderous and stretched out for over half a minute. Heels are not clicked sharp at the end of the drill; the leg is ramrod straight and lifted almost to head level before the soldier snaps into attention. A subliminal kick, my cynical mind thinks. Every single movement is exaggerated, aggrandized but somehow feels very normal in the situation. Anything less dramatic would surely have been a disappointment, for me and for the thousands who had come all the way to watch this.

As the ceremony ended and people started walking back towards the car park, chattering excitedly about what they had just seen, I wondered what the whole thing was about. I looked around then to see if anyone else had the sense of disappointment, even bewilderment, that I was experiencing at that moment, but the crowds seemed to have no complaints. They had perhaps come there to witness their country's might. Or perhaps it was just a fun evening out from Amritsar, complete with bhangra dancing and frenzied emceeing.

Whenever I thought of this ceremony earlier, I had envisioned it as a channel for the emotions of Indians and Pakistanis who want peace, including the frustrated soldiers on either side who spend months and years away from their families, fighting a battle which they cannot fathom. Whatever it was, a symbol of peace and hope it was not.

Me, on second thought, I should have carried a book with me. I could have used it to fan myself for some relief from the sweltering heat and tension.