Amritsar: It is a showstopper performance – good time and a group of pilgrims standing for a while to absorb the scene of two parents who sacrifice the back of each other in a happy hug with the background of Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan Wednesday.
The significance of the hug is not lost to anyone.
It was a reunion of the two Octogenarian brothers separated by partitions, 74 years ago.
“Mil Ta Gaye …
(we met after all),” shouted loudly one of the brothers in the Beige turban.
Both are Muhammad Habib alias Shaila from India and Muhammad Siddiq, 80, from Faislabad in Pakistan.
With social media as a good friend, the Habib family found his old brother who had been lost and arranged a gathering when the Kartarpur corridor was opened for Indian pilgrims to visit the Sikh Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Temple, 4.7 km in the border in Punjab.
Habib told his brother, he was not married and devoted his life to care for their mother.
They are not the only reunion.
Sunita Devi from Ajowal in Hoshiarpur Punjab Regency crossed the border with five of his family to meet relatives in Pakistan.
When the partition was shaken through the ground, his father chose to stay, while his brothers migrated to Faisalabad.
And then, there are friends online too.
Jatinder Singh Amritsar brings the corridor to pray and love.
He met his Facebook boyfriend, a graduate student at Lahore Punjab University.
Manjit Kaur from Haryana dropped the road too: to meet Awais Mukhtar’s Facebook friends from Pakistan.
Both, however, was sent back by Pakistan Rangers because “the pair was found to be moving with suspicion” at the temple.
The reunion scene is also extraordinary for officials.
“I was with my staff in the Temple Kartapur on a routine visit and we were fascinated by the view of the people who embrace and cry,” said Muhammad Latif, CEO of the Project Management Unit, a Pakistani government agency who oversaw Kartarpur’s maintenance.
He said more Indian pilgrims must visit the temple.
“Only 153 people came to Pakistan on Tuesday, even though we had arranged 5,000 days.”