The Closing of the Gates

The best show in town (Lahore being the town) has got to be the closing of the border gates between Indian and Pakistan. The stomping and swaggering, to-ing and fro-ing, head shaking and swaggering, are modeled after displays animals make in the wild. A small stadium has been built around the gates themselves, and crowds (segregated by sex, of course) cheer on their guards, chanting slogans as if they were at a football match. There's even a cheerleader to rile them up.

My Pakistani colleague was a bit disgusted, because it seemed to her that the sloganeering was more about Muslims vs. Hindus than Pakistan vs. India. But even she had to laugh at the display. "You see, the Pakistani flag is always just a tiny bit higher than the Indian flag as they're lowering it. And if India sends one guard to the gates, Pakistan must send two. When India sends a second guard, Pakistan sends a third."