LAHORE, March 11: A nine-member delegation of Indian writers arrived here on Thursday evening through Wagah to attend the 10th Saarc Writers Conference.
Known writers and columnists - Intizar Husain, Munoo Bhai, Kishwar Naheed and Qazi Javed - greeted and garlanded the guests at the border where pigeons were also released as a symbol of peace.
The three-day conference is being held at the Alhamra from March 12 to 14 under the auspices of the Foundation of Saarc Writers and Literature. The Action Aid Pakistan, the Pakistan Academy of Letters and the Hawwa Associates are collaborating it.
Delegates from Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives have already reached the city early on Thursday morning while arrival of Sri Lankan writers was expected late in the evening.
Conference coordinator Kishwar Naheed said Dr Abid Husain from India would land at the Lahore airport in the early hours of Friday. Arrival of former Indian prime minister V P Singh and his wife could not be confirmed.
Expressing his feelings on the first visit to Pakistan, Dr Ashok Vajpai said Pakistan was not a strange land for him because he had many friends (among writers) here. However, he said, he had not visited this part of the sub-continent before.
"I have heard a lot about Lahore, its culture and environment and now I have got a chance to see the city by myself." Referring to increasing goodwill gestures by the governments of India and Pakistan, he said: "We have been preaching friendship (between the two neighbouring states) for long, and now these people (establishment and politicians) have started accepting the ground realities that they have no option but to develop mutual understanding to live in peace."
Kamleshwar said writers could promote harmony between the two countries through their novels and short stories. He was of the view that borders had nothing to do with the India-Pakistan literature.
Ms Renuka Narayanan, who is associated with The Indian Express as senior editor (religion, arts and culture), said she was very much excited at her first trip to "next-door neighbours."
I feel so close to this land of Sufi mystics that I cannot believe I am crossing an international border." Besides attending the moot, she plans to visit the shrines of Hazrat Data Sahib and Hazrat Mianmir, as well the tomb of Anarkali.
There will be eight sessions in the conference, the first in Pakistan, to discuss subjects like the mystiques and roots of Saarc region, apathy of inflicted wars since 9/11, globalization, linguistics, etc.
In a fix: A defiant Rangers official deployed at a check-post outside the Customs Zone at Wagah refused to allow the hosts of an Indian writers' delegation to receive them on the border.
Those who had reached Wagah to welcome the Indian guests included senior columnists Intezar Husain, Munoo Bhai, poetess Kishwar Naheed and Pakistan Academy of Letters director Qazi Javed.
The official did not allow even media people to cross the first check-post, showing a complete disregard to his seniors who wanted to talk to him over the phone to settle the issue.
Ms Naheed had phoned senior Rangers officers who, she said, had assured her in the morning that the Pakistani hosts would be allowed to go close to the border to receive the Indian guests. "I have been told we shall be received over a cup of tea by the officials deployed at the post."
The official also refused to listen to an officer of the Rangers public relations department over the cell phone of a woman journalist who had sought intervention of the officer to get through the check-post for proper coverage of delegation's arrival.
Ironically, the man continuously let in workers of nearby shops to fetch water and collect utensils from inside the zone while telling the anxious hosts and journalists that their entry was possible only when the gates would be opened to the public at 3:45pm.
Ms Naheed, carrying NoCs for the Indians who had been waiting at the customs counter for around half an hour, was in a fix what to do as the official was neither allowing her to put these documents before the authorities concerned nor was himself agreeing to do so.
Finally, an FIA officer came to her rescue and directed the official to open the gate and let the hosts and their mini-bus enter the area to collect the guests as well as their luggage.
