muhammadhafeezmalik
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Jan 21, 2015
- Messages
- 5,414
- Reaction score
- -17
- Country
- Location
CHANDIGARH: At a time when Indo-Pak relations are at one of the lowest ebbs, a unique movement for friendship has begun ahead of the anniversary of the Partition, with a number of Punjabis writing letters, addressed to the Lahore post office, with a message of love and peace.
|
"Dear Lahore, how are you? Let’s trip in time, shall we?” writes Amy Singh, a poet and teacher from the Indian state of Chandigarh. She began writing letters to Lahore, the city she loved but hadn’t had the chance to travel to. It’s a city she says she came across “accidentally.”
Speaking to an audience that listened to her with rapt attention, at the recently concluded Faiz Festival, Singh said, “I was all of 14, with my mother at a hospital in Amritsar, when I first stumbled upon the fearless, seditious radio waves of Pakistan that could not be contained by the border.” Later, she tuned into a musical programme that was dedicated to the late ghazal singer Mehdi Hassan. It moved her to the point where she “wanted to write to the city. So I just scribbled a letter and mailed it to the General Post Office, Lahore. I wrote, ‘I am extending my hand of friendship, will you hold it, Lahore? Lahore, will you come and dine with me? Yeh joh saari lakeerein hain, inko mita lein…"
Titled “Daak: to Lahore with love”, the movement is an initiative of a Chandigarh-based poet and teacher, Amy Singh, who has been writing such letters for the past three years. It picked up pace in the past three days, when she posted video messages on social media exhorting people to be extremists of love rather than violence.
Amy said she has no direct connection with anyone in Pakistan but she wanted to express her feelings and pain of separated states, so she decided to send letters to General Post Office, Lahore.
She claimed to have written around 600 letters, expecting no response. The letters landed where they were supposed to, by the GPO employees, and the Lahore readers agreed with her comments.
“I adore Lahore, and I’ve conveyed my love through my letters,” she added, pledging to render the borders pointless as letters etched in profound emotions are penned.
She recalled how her grandfather who died when she was very young, liked to write in Urdu and watch PTV.
Singh is the founder of Agla Warqa, a podcast committed to keeping the people of Sanjha Punjab [Shared Punjab: as in both Indian and Pakistani] connected. “Hatred is taught, but love is innate; that’s what my Lahore is for,” she said at the end of her session.
Another session at the festival saw Zulfiqar Ali Zulfi, Kamran Lashari and Dr Arfa Sayeda Zahra on the panel. Titled A City Besieged and Its Artistic, Architectural and Literary Toll, the session had Zufli recount days when the streets of the Walled City were so quiet and deserted that he could paint for hours tucked in a corner, without getting distracted.
Sadly, none of the letters drew any response. But the movement suddenly picked up pace when she posted the letters on Internet with a message asking others to emulate. Within a short time, she has got messages from Pakistan with people saying they will retrieve the letters from the post office and reply.
Many people quickly followed the initiative and wrote letters to Lahore and posted those on Internet. Not just that, PKR Jain Senior Secondary School, Ambala, led by its principal Uma Sharma, has pledged sending letters by its 2,000 students. A youth, Bikram, from Tohana town penned a letter to the Lahore post office and sent her a copy. “Interestingly, so many youngsters, who had no immediate experience of what Lahore was and what the pain of Partition felt like, have wrote letters or sent messages appreciating the movement,” she said.
She too had no connection with Lahore, but had heard many stories about the Pakistani city, which defined Punjabi culture. “My grandfather, who died during my early childhood, used to tell me about a vibrant life, the love and romanticism of Lahore. I have never been there. I felt for the city three years ago, when a popular eatery changed a food park’s name from Lahore Chowk to some other city’s name. I felt for Lahore, and wrote my first letter.”
She doesn’t known if anyone was reading her letter, “I wrote as per my mood and in the language I felt. I expected some reply but none came. Thanks to social media, there is a flood of response now. I hope this bloodshed ends.”
She recalled how her grandfather who died when she was very young, liked to write in Urdu and watch PTV.
Singh is the founder of Agla Warqa, a podcast committed to keeping the people of Sanjha Punjab [Shared Punjab: as in both Indian and Pakistani] connected. “Hatred is taught, but love is innate; that’s what my Lahore is for,” she said at the end of her session.
Another session at the festival saw Zulfiqar Ali Zulfi, Kamran Lashari and Dr Arfa Sayeda Zahra on the panel. Titled A City Besieged and Its Artistic, Architectural and Literary Toll, the session had Zufli recount days when the streets of the Walled City were so quiet and deserted that he could paint for hours tucked in a corner, without getting distracted.
