Two Enemy Countries & The Language of Love

Imagine living in a place for half your life. You are born there, grow up there, build a home, have neighbours who become family. You meet the love of your life, get married, raise children, create memories in every corner. And then, one day, you’re told to leave — without a proper goodbye, without packing your belongings, without knowing if you’ll ever return.

Welcome to 1947.

We recently visited the Kartarpur Sahib Gurudwara in Pakistan, traveling through the Kartarpur Corridor — a bridge of peace between India and Pakistan. But this isn’t about what happened there. This is about what happened the day before. In Amritsar, my 85-year-old grandmother, who was to accompany us to the Gurudwara, found herself reminiscing about a journey she made decades ago. She is a Partition survivor. In 1947, at just seven years old, she crossed the border with her family on a steam boat — young, naive, but with a sharp memory, one she still carries today.

She told us how families had to choose between staying and leaving, how hers decided that India was their future. She spoke of the wealth people left behind — cash, gold, homes, everything they had built — because the only thing more valuable was survival. She recalled how, on arrival, they lived in refugee camps, how those with education, like her father, were among the first to find government jobs. She described community newspapers filled with ads — people desperately searching for lost loved ones, hoping to reunite with those separated in the chaos.

That night, I felt a gratitude I had never known before. Gratitude for the times I was born in, for the privileges I never had to fight for.

So often, we have this image of being a “self made” person, but what a lie, what a delusion that is. We’re all, a result of many generations of struggle, not necessarily in terms of wealth, but definitely in terms of the opportunity, that something as simple as you and I sipping a drink in our favourite restaurant goes back to so many generations of hard work. The hard work of those who built the world that we now move through so easily, the opportunities that they had to fight for — the ones that were served to us on a platter, the ones that we rarely stop to notice and so easily take for granted. The next morning, we reached the Baba Dera Nanak Border, cleared Indian immigration, took our polio shots, and walked towards Pakistan. Just before entering Pakistani immigration, we stopped at Pakistan National Bank’s counter to deposit the required fees, when the man at the counter, bearded and friendly, started chatting.

“India mey kahan se hain aap?” he asked (Where in India are you from?)

“Kartarpur pehli baar aa rahe hain?” (Is this your first time in Kartarpur?)

As we spoke, he excitedly said, “Kal toh aap match dekhoge.” (Tomorrow, you’ll watch the match, right?) VT, intrigued, responded, “Haan, aap log dekhte hain yahan cricket?” (Oh, you guys watch cricket here too?)

“Bilkul dekhte hain ji,” he said with a grin (Of course we do!)

“Virat Kohli ke fan hain hum bhi. Kisi ke saamne chale na chale, Pakistan ke saamne toh hamesha chalta hai woh.” (We’re Virat Kohli fans too. Even if he doesn’t perform against others, he always shines against Pakistan)

We laughed. He smiled, handed us our receipt, and bid us goodbye.

As I walked the 300 meters towards immigration, I thought to myself how decades have passed, borders have hardened, history has been rewritten in textbooks, but people? They remain the same.

We may wear different jerseys, but underneath we’re just people who are stripped of differences, past wounds and all that divides us. Underneath, we still seek warmth in a conversation, sharing the simple joys of life. Maybe if we talked a little more about cricket and a little less about everything else, the world would be a better place.