The roti seems to be a few days old. Packed in a mud-stained handkerchief, it is broken into small pieces. With no sabzi or even a smidgen of pickle to go with it, these dry and crumbly remains of the staple Indian bread are the entire breakfast for Ram Swaroop Sharma. Read more

Please keep this to yourself. The Gandhi-King Plaza is a snug little garden at one corner of the India International Centre (IIC), Delhi’s so-called intellectual hub. Read more

The Delhi Walla traveled for nine days in Pakistan. I consider it my own country in a way that’s difficult to understand by those whose comprehension of a land and its people is defined by passports and territories. Read more

While visiting Lahore and Karachi, I found both cities were being perceived as unsafe. In Karachi, friends warned that I might die in a bomb blast in Lahore. In Lahore, friends warned that my cell phone might be robbed at gunpoint in Karachi. It was funny to hear Karachiites and Lahoris being bitchy about each other. Read more

In Lahore, The Delhi Walla pretended to be a Lahori. I travelled in an auto rickshaw. I rode on a bike. I boarded a city bus.

As in Delhi, I walked all over the town. I strolled in the Mall Road. I purchased an antique Shakespeare from a second-hand bookstore near Regal Chowk. I had fresh musambi juice at a stall in Hall Road.

I watched people play cricket opposite the Tollinton Market building. I saw a biker waving Pakistan’s flag. I stood outside the now-closed Pak Tea House, a legendary café once frequented by great intellectuals.

Outside the ticket stall at Shahi Quila, I purchased the Rs 10 ticket that is given to Pakistani nationals, and not the Rs 100 ticket for foreigners. Since we were all brown, the man at the counter didn’t take me as an outsider.

At noon, I walked in the shaded corridor of the grand Badshai Masjid and took a siesta in its cool prayer hall.

Later, I had Peepal leaves falling on me in the ground around Minar-e-Pakistan. I then took a rickshaw to Lahore Museum where I ordered Pepsi at the canteen. Next, I attended the 79th martyrdom anniversary of Shaheed Bhagat Singh at Shadman Chowk.

I also roamed around in the campus of Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Pakistan’s most prestigious business institute. I hung out with students who dressed, behaved and spoke like the baba-log Stephanians of Delhi University.

While taking photographs on the Mall Road, a cop stopped me and asked for my shinakht (identity). When he discovered that I hold an Indian passport, he asked, “Do you know the trouble between India and Pakistan and still you are so openly taking pictures?” I said, “But I’m your friend.” Satisfied, he let me take his picture.

At night, I passed by Lahore’s lovely canal. As part of the Basant season festivities, it was lit up with decorations. There were giant models of lotus flowers floating on the water. At one point I came across the figures of the whirling dervishes of Maulana Rumi.

In the end, I went to Bhati Gate and paid my haziri at the sufi shrine of Daata Durbar. Its sprawling courtyard had pilgrims sleeping, praying and sitting meditatively. I was among my own people.

Fatima Bhutto came to Delhi in April, 2010, for the launch of her memoirs, Songs of Blood and Sword. Granddaughter to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and daughter of Mir Murtaza Bhutto, Ms Bhutto was born in Kabul in 1982. Her father was killed by the police in 1996 in Karachi during the premiership of his sister, Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 2007. Ms Bhutto maintains that her aunt Benazir was responsible for her father’s killing. Read more

Heera Mandi, Lahore’s fabled red light district, is almost dead. Most dancing establishments have shut down. The courtesans no longer pretend to be mere dancers. Read more