‘I was detained as a potential suicide bomber’

To the Lahore Literary Festival. As I cross the border from India, Pakistan is experiencing an unprecedented wave of sectarian violence: 400 Shias have been killed in bomb attacks this year, while more than 150 houses and two churches belonging to the Christians have been burned in mob attacks. Yet Pakistan always manages to stumble on. Sixty-five years after partition, Lahore still feels like Delhi’s sister city, and is much more like my adopted home than either Madras or Calcutta is. Moreover, there are some hopeful signs. Zardari’s government is about to complete its term in office — the first time in the country’s history that an elected government will manage to do so — and the literary festival itself is a huge success. Every event is packed to the gunnels with excited Lahoris relishing a break from their grim politics. We authors are treated somewhere between Bono doing an airdive and Imran Khan returning home after beating India in a test match.