The tree on Mall Road

I can well understand why, for

Lahoris, it was difficult to forget the multi-layered history and exciting flavours of that city. Chandigarh, where many of our families settled subsequently, must have seemed so bland in comparison.

The best thing I did recently was to take both my parents back to Lahore, to a past they thought they would never revisit again, never be reconciled with. My mother went and saw her old house in Model Town. My father visited his home in Rawalpindi after a gap of almost 60 years. I could see that this tryst with the past effaced some painful memories.

Visits of this kind work in the same way for Pakistanis. In Lahore, I met Naheed Rizvi, whose father was from pre-partition Patiala. When she had visited her grandfather8217;s grave there, she was so overwhelmed with emotion that tears flowed ceaselessly. She, too, felt she had paid a tribute to her ancestors through that visit.

Partition, as one of the world8217;s biggest human migrations, continues to be a wound for many. On both sides of the border, people are sentimental about the homes they had abandoned when bestiality and communal passions overwhelmed life-long friendships and compassion.

But that can happen only if cross-border visits are encouraged by easing the visa regime and helping people in India and Pakistan reclaim their past.