In those days, going to Lahore was a major event for us girls – for my many friends and sisters and cousins and cousins of cousins! Once, in the month of Maagh, a village elder, Bapu, took us to the city to see the basant mela but he ended up losing his way in the labyrinthine streets of Lahore. The inner alleys were undulating, going in circles, sometimes hitting a sudden dead end. Rows and rows of alluring shops lined the streets, selling cloth, cattle feed, seeds and a variety of provisions. Dingy enclosures with roofs of stretched sheepskin sheltered ironsmiths, jewellers, carpenters, dyers and cloth merchants – all busy in the rhythm of their trades. Then there were special outlets with prized commodities, Kashmiri shawls and Multani carpets, which brought a lot of wealth to Punjab in those days. The men and women in the bazaars were dressed in clothes we scarcely saw in the village- rich silks, fine pearls and embroidered pashminas. It was difficult to describe the glamour of Lahore- you had to see it with your own eyes. It was a big bad city with a beguiling allure, a heady mix of terror and temptation.

So, when we...

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