Wah Wagah

I along with my parents visited wagah border, as a part of our north India trip.It was one of the finest experience of my life. Wagah is the only road border crossing between India and Pakistan. It is in between Amritsar(about 20 kms) of India and Lahore of Pakistan. Every evening both India and Pakistan soldiers participate in a ceremony called the flag lowering ceremony.To witness this wonderful event lot of people from both the countries gather at this place.

We visited Wagah and Amritsar in the first week of may 2007. It was the beginning of the north Indian summer, temparature was around 30 degree celcius(very hot compared to namma Bengaluru). After reaching Amritsar from New Delhi by train, we took a taxi to go around Amritsar including Wagah. Our taxi diver (of course a sardarji) took us to wagah at around 4:30pm after showing some temples of Amritsar.Very few Indian visitors were there at that time, but already many Pakistanis had geared up. As few minutes rolled,thousands of Indians started gathering and the special stadium built to witness the flag lowering ceremony was full.On the other hand Pakistanis were only around half our strength.

The main event is that flags of both the countries are lowered in the same speed along with the beautiful parade by soldiers. As far Indian side is considered, our Soldiers will be continously encouraged by playing the recorded patriotic songs. Then came a man with mike, who encouraged the Indian crowd to chant slogans like Hinduatan Jindabad and Vande Mataram. Also some randomly selected Indians ran towards the border line waving our Tricolour flag. Soon the whole stadium was filled with the patriotic chants. Even today if I remember wagah, the sensational slogan pass through my ears"Hindustan Jindabad".