Daastaan

My romance with Lahore started in early 80s when I first visited the city as a seventh grader. It had seemed a world apart  from my small dusty town. Green, urban and clean. I immediately fell in love with the leafy green new campus of the Punjab University where my Uncle was studying. The environment in the hostel, the sports ground and the tree lined canal all left an impression upon me that was to last forever. Almost ten years later when I myself took up lodging in the new campus hostel, it was like a dream come true for me.

Since then I have moved on in my life. Lived, studied and worked in cities like Birmingham, Melbourne and Toronto. But Lahore still resides in my heart like the fragrant memory of a childhood beloved. It has changed almost beyond recognition in the last ten years. In the words of Patras Bukhari, Lahore is all surrounded by Lahore. The traffic has become too messy for comfort. It seems as though the whole city is going somewhere on cars, rickshaws, vans and motorcycles. The winter is no longer associated with nostalgic scent of Alstonia, but with a persistent smog. Commercial buildings have cropped up all over the city in the most ungainly fashion. Despite all this, the city retains its openness and warmth. Every time you come back to Lahore and with the first aerial view of the city from your plane makes your blood race in your veins. The memories of the university days, endless walks along the canal, long lost loves and friendships, the struggle for career; all conjures up in your mind.

Lahore canal provides repreive from heat