Shimla, October 4
Contrary to the hype about sour Indo-Pak relations, families of both Usama Bashir and Hamza Naveed, students of Aitchison College, Lahore, were more than happy to hear that the two boys were visiting India as they handed them a long shopping list of Indian ethnic jewellery, woollens and glass bangles.
Usama, along with 27 other students from Pakistan, is here to play football and cricket matches against Bishop Cotton School (BCS) as part of the sesquicentennial celebrations of the school. “Shahrukh Khan and Katrina Kaif are my favourite stars and I do not miss any of their movies like any other youth in Pakistan,” said 17-year-old Usama.
With Usama’s grandparents living in Amritsar and Hamza’s maternal grandmother in Shimla before they moved to Pakistan in 1947, boys from Lahore feel the two nations and its people are almost identical in most respects. “Most of the youth back home feel India and Pakistan were carved out from one nation so we treat India as our sister country and there is no question of any animosity,” the youth said in unison.
Similar sentiments were echoed by Fakir Syed Aijazuddin, principal of the 123-year-old Aitchison College, who was humbled by the warmth exuded by the people here. “The future of Indo-Pak relations lies in the hands of these boys who are keen to have cordial relations with India as they feel we were one nation before Partition,” he said.
As the boys talked of the warmth and hospitality extended by Indian people, 77-year-old Imranullah Khan, a retired Lt General from Frontier area of Pakistan, vividly remembered the night of October 2, 1947, when he left Shimla for Lahore along with 41 other boys studying at the BCS.
“Escorted by a Gorkha company and British army, we left the school at 2 am for Ambala as our request made before Lord Mountbatten for completing the academic session was turned down considering the tension following Partition,” he said.
Ali Afridi, a lawyer from Lahore who was one of the 42 Pakistani boys who left the BCS that fateful night, too remembered every detail vividly.
“We always prepare hard to play against India in any match and this time too it was no different even though we lost today,” the team members said as the BCS won the match 4-2.
They cheered and said all was not lost as they would take on the BCS team in a cricket match tomorrow.
