A couple of months after our first visit to Pakistan, my four-year-old son still gets excited whenever he hears the word ‘Pakistan’. As we visited the Wagah border and watched the daily flag-lowering ceremony, we learned an exciting new word that rings until the present day, especially for my son. It is ‘zindabad’, which means long live. The ceremony was phenomenal. Excited fans start pouring into seating arenas on either side of the massive iron gates separating the nuclear-armed South Asian foes at boundary many hours before the event. The crowds are so close that they can see the faces of people on the other side. Then the troops show up, striding up to the gate with their legs raised.
As a foreigner, I felt even more patriotic while watching the ceremony. Despite having a violent and bloody history, India and Pakistan share strong cultural and linguistic ties, which makes this ceremony more interesting and entertaining to observe directly from the border itself.
Ahmad Faizuddin
Malaysia