THERE’S a time for everything, as the saying goes, which includes canvassing for better ties between India and Pakistan. Their relations since inception have been marked by ups and downs, and today they are looking more stuck than threatening on their rusty slide. Savour the description that former foreign minister Jaswant Singh offered after the Vajpayee-Musharraf summit ended fruitlessly in Agra: “The caravan of peace has stalled, not overturned.” A viable suggestion to let the ties mature unhurriedly.

There was a time in the 1960s when the wounds of partition had barely healed, and trainloads of Pakistanis and Indians were crossing the border every day. Some travelled from Karachi for the flimsiest of reasons — on one occasion to watch Dilip Kumar romance Madhubala in a movie that played on the memory of Mughal grandeur. Cousins would look out for Rubia voile fabric in the crowded lanes of Karol Bagh market where they were warmly received by Punjabi shopkeepers still struggling with the trauma of 1947.

There was a time too when prime minister Vajpayee instructed his cricket team to win hearts in Pakistan. Indians who came to Lahore to watch the long overdue one-day international in 2004, found themselves lavished with warmth they had never imagined. There was amazing hospitality everywhere. Many returned home loaded with gifts and fond memories of free rides in taxis and exotic food courts that didn’t charge them a paisa.

There was a time too when young Pakistanis were taught to see India as an enemy country and Indians were........

© Dawn