Then, the 15-minutes of fame followed in repeating patterns as we sashayed through the press club and went quote-unquote to every other member of the paparazzi. This I guess was the first teaspoon of celebhood we tasted. Initially I was at sea as to what to say before a camera, and all the Hindi-speaking skills I’d gathered since childhood just deserted me (Renegade!!) and I went on and on in few words of Hindi smothered by tumbles of innate English lines!!! It was all so glamorous, and very very exhausting. We got the for-ex done and headed homewards for a brief siesta; after all we had a midnight flight to catch.

Travel to Doha: 2 July 2003
I can never forget that night. 1:30 am. I walked into this huge hallway of the Bombay Airport to find a rather alarmed set of ‘comrades’. Apparently, we did not have confirmations for the Flight to Doha and if there were no miracle we would just spend the night in the airport without taking-off!!! It was hope-against-hope, adrenaline surging… juggling between officials with our ‘best smiles’ and perhaps collective prayer. Sagari and Lolly didi had their flight half an hour before ours, and they hadn’t checked in coz they didn’t have the heart to leave us. We just sat there for what looked like eternity, while the Quatar Airlines people emailed Doha to check our confirmations to Karachi. Then, the doorways of fate opened and presto, half an hour before take off, we checked in!!! It was ecstatic.

We made friends with a few Paki Officials from the Airline who put us up in a 3star hotel – Gulf horizon. Doha was 19 hours of rest with a 3–hour periodic gorge on continental delicacies. It was so typically the Arabia I’d imagined – exotic women, fantastic food… the minarets, the palm trees, the sea-face… I felt like an Arabian Princess from the Arabian Nights!! (Well, didn’t I fly behind time after all???)

Day 1: 3 July 2003, Thursday
We flew right back into time, 5:45 am to be rather precise. Karachi, it was!!! It was too jubilant a moment to have transcended the border… to tread the land whose name must not be uttered. Karachi was beautiful. After 2 hours we got through the immigration clearance and luggage. Ragni and Diva came to the airport – I just couldn’t digest we were in Pakistan, it was so India, frame to frame… I wondered if I’d even be home sick!!! The Pak crowd was so Indianised… sang the same songs, wore the same clothes… and they seemed so warm. Hugs galore, it was truly ‘home-coming’.

I LOVED the Textile Institute of Pak the moment I saw it!!! We had the first day workshops instantly. The first half was on Conflict resolution – essential features like Understanding, Open-mindedness, Honesty, Space n silence, Compromise, Trust etc., in the forum theatre style, where we enacted the conflict, reacted to it, froze, analyzed, took consensus and re-enacted it. It was simply mind-blowing, the whole exercise; opening the doors into our own perception of the bubble called our worlds. This was followed by the song and dance routine of the freedom songs.

By noon, we started serious ice-breaking activities. We got into teams –two Indian and Two Pak, and sat to sketch timelines about how we perceived our post-partition history. Then we were asked to compare and contrast. As usual, like little parrots, we dutifully did some Pak bashing in our best diplomatic lingo, and they too upheld all the standards of Indian bashing… it was en-angering. But we had to keep civil tongues. Then we talked about it… about how disturbing it was. We began to realize how soon our ‘similarities’ and ‘bonding’ began to mitigate when it came to nationalistic defense. This was when we began to ponder over the anomalies in history narration patterns both our countries had chosen to propagate… it was food for thought.

It was evening when we did the session that was the highlight of the day – The Reconstruction of History. We were now put into mixed teams of Indian and Pakistani, and we were given excerpts from the other’s history textbooks, which talked of the same instances from our common history. My team did ‘What led to the Partition’. When we finished our study and had to present the anomalies in pairs… it was a rain of sentiments, with questions flying, tirading against one another… conflicting facts, growing confusion in our minds – Whom to believe, what to believe... History so unprecedentally appeared as one big lie!!!!

When we were so sapped of charge and nationalistic sentiments, the facilitators took us introspectively, into our thought foundries where we tried to look at the mind-bogging issues a little more calmly and pragmatically. We all came to the conclusion that the truth lay somewhere in between. That the whole tussle was so hazy, so baseless? And that we must start afresh with no biases marring our ‘bonding’ that was the sole verity of the peace camp. I dropped dead that night.

Day 2 & 3: 4 & 5 July 2003, Friday & Saturday
Fourth was a busy day as we all were catapulted into our respective schedules by being assigned Teams we’d be part of in the movie-making process. The first half was a lecture by Moh, this 23-yr-old who runs a Broadway Production company in NY called BLAH productions, about the roles to be played by each team in the movie and each team player. I was assigned in the writing team coz I lost my voice as soon as we transcended the border!!! What a pity. Oh, we also had some trust-building exercises – good fun. Got a peek inside each one’s kink. Kind of exciting to admit how we liked certain weird things… was lovely.

In the writing core group, I met Shandana, later christened Shandy by us, who was this young, hotshot revolutionary Pak writer – an attractive lady in her twenties perhaps, exuding great charm and intellect. I was bowled over. We did a few warm-up writing exercises. Watched ‘No-Man’s land’. Evening was informal, yet again.

The Fifth was work, work and more backbreaking work. Shandy slave drove us till we coughed up this classic SatyajitRay concept for the ‘purrfect’ Indo-Pak movie. We learnt basics of screen writing. It is way different from normal scripting. I was touched when Shandy brought me a Terry Pratchet to read!! We bonded as fellow-Pratchetians. Funny how much a book can bond you!!! But I was maha-moved.

In the evening we proudly read out our script – after 6 hours of internal strife between the writers which was oh-so-typical of collective brainstorming – when we had to reap our harvest, we got a mass thumbs-down as the script was, ‘too intellectual’, ‘too violent’ and ‘technically unfeasible’. Infuriatingly enough, everybody wanted Indians and Pak on a bus, Mrs.&Mr.Iyer style!!! The day on its own was so frustrating, had a lot of Indo-Pak hassles on the team, the age-gap and hence the perception gap between the writers was so frustrating… wondered through the day if ‘Peace’ was this insidious concept, so on the surface… We sat down yet again till 2:30 am that night to rescript and add glamour to our art-movie, while the entire lot was off to party!!! We decided that we’d commit collective suicide in the 2 feet duck pond if it would get quashed yet again. Their work would only begin when they get a final script. Talk of frustration… I dropped dead again while the rest sat chatting at the rooftop till dawn… the writing team had NO stamina whatsoever that night.

Day 4: 6 July 2003, Sunday
The session started at some Ungodly, obscenely early hour and the new script got quashed again. We wanted to die, right into our 2 feet duck pond outside the Cafeteria… Then Moh and us brainstormed and hence emerged the genesis of a typical, fun, high school teeny-bopper piece – it was young, funny, saucy and we dreaded the blasted team people who by now were so adept at rejecting scripts. I almost felt inadequate. By 1:30, we were sleep deprived and I was convinced the writing team needed collective suicide. Most of the scripting team fell asleep… We narrated the new script. Lo and Behold! The guys LOVED it. We did it. One border crossed – From SatyajitRay to Sweet Valley High… many more to go.
Meanwhile in camp-dom, we had begun bonding. There was so much hugging and warmth… wondered if I’d ever be homesick. Play sessions weren’t exactly kicking off. I felt very untrained, inadequate and angry. Swore to go home and learn a tad more of the PFP. Got to know from home that we were on ALL regional papers.

Day 5 & 6: 7 & 8 July 2003, Monday & Tuesday
Seventh was a rather interesting day in camp life. Morning was a daylong drill routine of rehearsals… we did some relatively lengthy character-analysis workshops with Moh and Pavi, the director. We had individual brainstorms about nuances of the characters we were to portray in the movie, and we had to conjure up interesting pasts and histories to the character so as to justify why the character was the way he/she was!!! God, what fun!!! I was on my hobbyhorse… it was great to get into nitty-gritty’s of the one I’d created!!! We had a swearing exercise where we’d all have to go on stage and swear!!! Then we had chemistry-building exercises… characters had a made-up past linking, umm romantically and we had to exude that chemistry in pairs – Nihal was supposed to be, ‘Priyanka’s’ (my) ex-boyfriend…he he. It was so hilarious – Nihal and I were given different inputs – I was told I want to get back to Nihal, Nihal was told he were to verify if I’m giving him blank calls… and neither of us had a clue what the other’s motive was and we had to evolve a dialogue and exude a certain chemistry while everybody else had to guess what we were trying to do… of the other actors, some of them were supposed to hit on each other, some were the ‘jealous’ gf/bf… it was so much fun!!! Then we had the next stage of chemistry exercise, when all our stories were carried forward to this great party where we were yet again given ‘secret instructions’ to react and evolve… The whole exercise was so incredible… we almost lived our parts. We soaked in our characters, the chemistries, so much so, that we stopped referring to each other in our real names sub-consciously in the camp/cafeteria… This stint in acting, I’ll never forget!!

Seventh evening we stared shooting for the first scene… when I ran to pickup my clothes to change into Mr.Akhtar, the professional still-photographer stopped to tell me that I looked outstanding in my portfolio snaps… I was flattered!

Night was Zohra’s and Amit’s birthday – it was party-time!!! We turned the lecture-room into a disco with camera-flashes as trance-lights!!! The sound was so much better than most discs in India!!! Paks are experts in in-house parties!!! We had our hairs caked and our foreheads taped with stupid titles like ‘idiot’, dumbass’ ‘women wanted’ ‘I need help’ etc. The party rocked!!

Eighth all day went in scene rehearsal after Pavi gave us a sounding for our time-management. Evening, after loading some more cakey makeup, we shot till early morning in the cramped bus with no leg space. Hounded by a few Maulas from the nearby chemical factory for shooting at such a blasphemous hour! We were in 2 buses – 1 was loaded with the equipment and us, the other was the camp ‘public’ and then was the ‘car’ – with few of our facilitators!!! Good fun.

Day 7 & 8: 9 & 10 July 2003, Wednesday & Thursday
Shooting! Ahoy! That’s all we did on the 9th. Morn and noon as usual got consummated in scene rehearsal. Shooting commenced at 4:30 pm. The make-up by now was professional with the touch ups. Wow, quite a talented bunch we had there! I felt like some heroine, with the hairspray, lipstick n mascara… the arc lights and the doting still photographer adding to my narcissistic halo. I sure must’ve been in some dream.

The night was long… wondered if this was what burning midnight oil was all about… as the shooting progressed, it was difficult to stay awake in the lapses, as we’d continue power napping. Was it sheer will power or was it Pavi’s slave-driving practice sessions I know not, that helped us enact and deliver dialogues in that state of absolute delirium… kya is raat ki subah nahi? Then, the doorways of heaven opened to close the gateway of siesta, and lo and behold! Our facilitators arrived with cartloads of dhaba chai at 4 am!!! Wow!!!

We had a wrap at 6am… relief was like never before. That there was mass-Euphoria would be grossly understating the scenario. We rode back to the hostel like junglees on the rooftop of the buses. I know for sure that these were the best days of my life – here was I; free as the wind, fresh as silk… they’ll never come again.

Tenth was a crazy day. Woke up at 3, found I almost missed the bus to Karachi. Well, almost. After 2 hours of bumpy-riding, reached Clifton, Karachi’s heart, the ‘posh’ shopping capital. Lunch was at Nando’s, this funky ‘Portuguese’ outlet, a lot like ‘up and above’ back home. Lunch and dessert burnt a hole in my for-ex. (Did I miss Daddy?) Sophie’s n Sabina’s mom gifted me this beautiful, stunning ajraak, the traditionally Sindhi fabric. I was so touched. One of the unforgettable acts of friendship I’ll cherish for a lifetime.

Went to Zohra’s sprawling mansion, and ‘Mainduck’ studios… my portfolios were shot by Mr.Akhtar on the backdrop of a nearby palace. Felt on cloud 9. Heard a lot of compliments from the editing team on my performance n looks dept. Was I not gloating???

Nightlong we ‘crabbed’ a-la Karachi tradition, singing and dancing on the deck of a boat - all night on the backwaters… feasted on a spread of seafood, and for a few moments let the sea sink into the depths of my mind. Bus broke down on the way back, oh-so-typically the movie style!!! We freaked out with our ‘dialogues and ‘reactions’. It was a night to remember.

Day 9 & 10: 11 & 12 July 2003, Thursday and Friday
The eleventh was a lounge-day while we packed up took a last sigh in the premises of the T.I.P. Bid adieu to the ducks in the 2-feet duck pond, and moved to this 5-star hotel called Beach Luxury. The day went bonding and socializing. In the evening, we gorged in this Arabic restaurant ‘Damascus’ where we got ‘stoned’ on the hookah!! Oh, we talked the talk, walked the walk and now we smoked the flavored peace pipe!! Dinner burnt a greater hole into my for-ex… but it was WORTH it. I love the YIPPIES for all the outings. Fun unadulterated!!! I resolved never to get to Karachi until I’m millionaire, however.

All of us ventured out into the city on our own excited with the perilous air, to make our night of adventure to remember. Akhshata, Pavi etc were into a cab pretending to be Paks to maro a dhaba chai at 12 am, only to be exposed as Indies by their venerable cabbie!!! I joined a gang to drive out at 4 am to the sea-view beach, grab a night-coffee and blast the stereo with U2. I LOVED the night out… for some reason; the night still remains fresh in my memory… these were the best days of my life.

Twelfth was my day at the Clifton Bankers. Then we all went to this talk show at ‘Geo’ – Pak’s Aaj Tak. The masses bombarded us with these clichéd India bashing questions on Kashmir and we returned perfectly civil powerful replies, until our Paki counter-parts just unleashed such a severe tongue lashing on them. They stood up for us!! We were so moved to see the love between us, the comradeship of 10 days blossom out into this wonderful, mature bonding of similar-minded youth, tolerant and understanding of each other’s cultures and national legacies… the verity of this camp was re-iterated. We are the youth-without-borders, and idealistically speaking, sitting there we all felt that gen-next was definitely promising… there will be a day when most youth across the border would ‘bond’ like us… peace would no more be such a dream. Aah! How lovely it was to dwell in the idiosyncrasies of one’s own idealism!

Evening was this big party with the closing night. The ambience was breathtaking with the ladies in saree/ghagras; the men in Kurtas… there were speeches, songs, words of endearment, photos and more TV cameras and interviews. We gave ‘Indo-Pak couple’ interviews… but the mood was depression, coz we were to leave Karachi in a few hours. We got together in one of our rooms and cried and cried and cried for hours. Then we cut some cheesecakes and wrote souvenirs foe each other. A friend gifted me this tape I digged on. And few of my Pak friends hung around as I packed my bags. If there ever a night I’d chose to forget, it would be that… for Karachi that unforgettable night blew winds of separation.

Back to Bombay: 13 & 14 July 2003, Saturday & Sunday
Saturday was as usual at Doha where we were pleasantly surprised to be greeted by our Paki friends at the airline whom we befriended on our way. They put us up in a five-star hotel and if kindness would never cease, took us shopping in the afternoon! They even saw us off that night in the plane.

We were pretty moved that they’d saved clippings of our Pak visit. The shopping trip and the ride to the sea face they took us was over whelming. Sometimes humanity transcends synthetic borders of land and race and then we make some permanent relationships of the heart. What looms inside you then, is this lovely feeling, which words would never find emancipation to express.

Sunday morning, 3:30 am we landed in Bombay, severely jetlagged and dying to smell home soil that we’d never really missed until then. We gave Star News an exclusive and rushed homewards… this was it, the grand finale. This moment onwards, the trip has remained in my mind and my heart as an exclusively journey deep within and far across, a memory which is the greatest gift I’ve ever received in this life!!!