The store is located in BRS Nagar, Ludhiana. (Express photo by Gurmeet Singh)
Tucked in the C-block market of Bhai Randhir Singh (BRS) Nagar in Ludhiana but impossible to miss with its massive, green display board, a women’s clothing store – ‘Pakistani Attire’ – has been getting a lot of love on social media, especially from the neighbouring country.
Amused by the name, people from Pakistan have been posting comments expressing their happiness and wish to visit India and meet the store owner.
Puneet Kaur (36), who runs the store ‘Pakistani Attire’, told The Indian Express: “It has been nearly seven years since I have been importing Pakistani suits, dupattas, kurtis, dress material etc. from Pakistan. I have never received any negative remarks or feedback for naming my shop after Pakistan.”
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She added: “Except for a comment or two on Facebook where people told me not to promote Pakistan, no one including my family, friends or clients ever had any problems with it. Pakistani fashion is so unique and the suits are so well-designed that women from Punjab, in fact the entire northern region, are great fans of Pakistani attire and love buying them. I have clients from across the region, who always appreciate our work.”
The store owner said their customers include women from all communities. “We all are human beings first and God is one. There is no difference between people of India and Pakistan. It has been years that I have been dealing with people of Pakistan and they have always been very kind. No one has ever pointed a finger at the name of my store in Ludhiana and they always ask inquisitively about the products we offer,” said Kaur.
Meanwhile, after Ludhiana resident Jasbir Singh Jogi posted the picture of the store on a Facebook group ‘India Pakistan Heritage Club’, there was a flood of comments from across the border.
“Zabardast, dil khush kar ditta tussi!,” wrote Yousaf Hyat. “Love from Pakistan…,” wrote Farha Qazi. “I have a Bombay Bakery in my city Hyderabad Sindh,” wrote Shaheryar Khan. “Such a nice gesture…My best wishes,” wrote Shahina Marium from Okara, Pakistan. “This is Karachi…,” wrote Tanwir Ahmed, sharing a photograph of an eatery called ‘Indian Kitchen’ and another of ‘Delhi Sweets & Bakers’ in Okara.
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The post also took some down memory lane to pre-Partition times. One Umer Shakir from Gujranwala wrote: “…my father was also from Ludhiana, I would much obliged if you post the pics of Nawan Mohalla Peer Bakshish Wali Gali and Field Ganj koocha no. 8 Amli Wali Gali…” To this, Ludhiana resident Nitin Taneja replied, “…Now there is women’s shoe market in koocha 8. I go there every two months as I am a shoe dealer. You can see it on YouTube…”
“I wish to visit Ludhiana once because my ancestors were from there…,’ wrote Malik Rehan from Faisalabad.
Divya Goyal is a Principal Correspondent with The Indian Express, based in Punjab.
Her interest lies in exploring both news and feature stories, with an effort to reflect human interest at the heart of each piece. She writes on gender issues, education, politics, Sikh diaspora, heritage, the Partition among other subjects. She has also extensively covered issues of minority communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan. She also explores the legacy of India's partition and distinct stories from both West and East Punjab.
She is a gold medalist from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, the most revered government institute for media studies in India, from where she pursued English Journalism (Print). Her research work on “Role of micro-blogging platform Twitter in content generation in newspapers” had won accolades at IIMC.
She had started her career in print journalism with Hindustan Times before switching to The Indian Express in 2012.
Her investigative report in 2019 on gender disparity while treating women drug addicts in Punjab won her the Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitivity in 2020. She won another Laadli for her ground report on the struggle of two girls who ride a boat to reach their school in the border village of Punjab.
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