WAGAH BORDER

“Flags and hats with India’s colours were being sold along the admission queue, on the Indian side of the border with Pakistan, where hundreds were waiting for entry to the ceremony. Once inside the stadium, building work to add more seating capacity was visible on both sides of the border. A sign of growing tourist numbers, or a bid to outdo one another? Loudspeakers on either side also bid to outdo one another. While the Indians may have won the numbers game, the Pakistanis definitely had the better music.

The flag bearers ran in and a deafening cheer rose up from the crowds on both sides. Thirty minutes later, we heard a final whistle, and saw high marching, and a blink-and-you’d-miss-it handshake between officers. The gates between India and Pakistan clanged shut once again. You’d be forgiven for thinking you’d come to a long-anticipated cricket or football match.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of this experience is that the ceremony takes place at all. Seventy years on from the tragic events of Partition in India, relations between India and Pakistan are arguably as tense as ever. That the line drawn down Punjab in August 1947 resulted in the largest migration crisis in human history is a fact still omitted from too many history books. Knowing that more than 14 million people fled or left their homes when Partition was announced, and seeing that line, makes the border experience even more real. Through the separating trees comes the harsh reminder that Punjab was once happily one. The faces looking at each other from either side of the gate are remarkably similar.

Just 35 kilometres from Amritsar, the famous spectacle of the Wagah border ceremony draws in hundreds every day and is popular with Indian tourists and foreigners alike. You can get a shared pickup or rickshaw from outside the Golden Temple, or for greater comfort and much less waiting around, organize a private taxi.