Every day at sunset there is a grand spectacle at the only road border crossing between India and Pakistan.
It is the "lowering the flags"-ceremony.
Both sides are packed with people, strictly separated by men and women of course. Well the Indian side was considerably more crowded. There were tribunes like in a sport stadium to capture the crowd and make everybody get a glimpse or their "team". On each side of the border one of the guards was heating up the masses with their national slogans, in our case "Pakistan Zindabad". People would raise their fist and roar and it gave me the creeps standing in the middle of this passionately patriotic crowd. Then the flag was lowered, folded and carried away, the border guard did their high kicks and within 15 minutes everything was over. But this atmosphere, this tension in the air, all this national pride made me become a bit more Pakistani as well at that moment ;-)
It is the "lowering the flags"-ceremony.
Both sides are packed with people, strictly separated by men and women of course. Well the Indian side was considerably more crowded. There were tribunes like in a sport stadium to capture the crowd and make everybody get a glimpse or their "team". On each side of the border one of the guards was heating up the masses with their national slogans, in our case "Pakistan Zindabad". People would raise their fist and roar and it gave me the creeps standing in the middle of this passionately patriotic crowd. Then the flag was lowered, folded and carried away, the border guard did their high kicks and within 15 minutes everything was over. But this atmosphere, this tension in the air, all this national pride made me become a bit more Pakistani as well at that moment ;-)
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