Letter From Lahore - November 8, 2002

It was some time ago. To be precise it was the time we first started an airline service between Lahore and Islamabad. The distance is a little under 200 miles - less as the crow flies - and the land route has been known, and used, for thousands of years. It is the ancient road which goes all the way from Kabul to Kolkata; and during its time was known as the Jarnailee Sarrak, or the General's Path‚ by the proletariat, and the Grand Trunk Road‚ by the British.

All along the road there are vestiges - picturesque groves of trees, or clumps of majestic banyan‚ trees big enough for an army to rest under, where some great king or petty princeling, ordered a caravanserai built. There are towns all along the way, so kids driving wayward hoops are liable to bring highway traffic to a halt anytime, but we were used to it, and it was difficult to woo us away from the road and into the air. They made sure the fares were very attractive!

I have just come upon the stub of an old airline ticket, and the return ticket from Lahore to Islamabad was Rs 32. At the current rate of exchange Rs 32 is exactly equal to 50 cents American! That should have you falling out of your chair! The flight, even in a prop plane, takes a little over half an hour, and the fares have gone up since, but the distance has remained the same.

If you continued beyond Lahore, at almost the same distance there was another town - Delhi by name. In the time we have managed things so that the airfare from Lahore to Delhi, one way, is about Rs 32,000; and the half-hour flight takes approximately one-and-a -half days! That is because we and our neighbours do not allow overflights, so one has to go via Dubai....

Anyway, the upshot is that when there was a phone call from faraway Delhi, it was most pleasing. The caller was a lady from a rival publication - okay, she was from India Today, and they are planning their annual festival of music, and one performer will be the wonderful Shubha Mudgal! More wonderful, Shubhajee wants to sing two ghazals‚ by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, and the lady was calling to seek permission.

I told her Shubha Mudgal was free to sing all his poetry, and his prose, only she had to call us again, in person! Then the household lined up to wait for her call. She did, and the wife spent all the time talking.

Shubhajee had met Faiz many years ago in Allahabad, and had even sung some of his verses to him. We extracted a promise to receive recordings of her new songs. Mention of the phone call has caused a few ripples in Lahore, and friends have already sent us three cassettes of the music of Shubha; and one of Madhap Mudgal who I never knew about and who they tell me is Shubhajee's brother. And it struck me that the powers-that-be could ordain that we have to fly round the earth twice to make friends in Delhi, and we will still find sneaky ways to thwart them.

There is a final irony, though. One of the pieces Shubhajee wants to sing begins thus: Hum to thehray ajnabee, itnee muddaton kay baad, Phir banain gay aashna, kitnee mulaqaaton kay baad (We, who are like strangers, even after all those vicissitudes; And how many times must we meet, before we become acquaintances again?) And if I had half the way with words that the poet had, I would not have had to use up the whole letter to tell you my little story!