Wagag Crossing – 63 Years And Counting

The Wagah Crossing along the India-Pakistan border is host to maybe the most bizarre sight on all of the earth. It is at this small point on a map, the only border crossing between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, a daily evening ceremony has been performed for the previous sixty-three years and counting. It’s the closing of the gate, and as laughable as it is solemn.

Solemn isn’t the word one would first think of when surveying the boisterous crowds on either side, seated on bleachers waving flags and eating snacks while roaring with babies and children in tow. The evening retreat ceremony, when official flags on each side of the bitter border are reduced, is a showcase in pomp and rite that ends in a handshake.

For all of the strutting and chest-thumping, complete with screams and vicious glares, the occassion has managed to end on a handshake for all these years a quick pro formal one, to be certain, terse and machine-like to go along with the staccato tempo of the martial parade.

The army tattoo involves what seem to be individual guards breaking ranks to rush at the opposite side in intimidating goose-steps, but they always stop short of an invisible dividing line, leaving uniformed men to glower at one another through thick mustaches and, in the case of the Pakistani Rangers, full-on beards.

The action is generally terribly fast paced, until the actual retreat portion when each side takes as much time as possible to withdraw with their flags. Everyone observes this well-liked rite with a good nature and high spirits, though every few years a marginally ugly incident arises, for example the time in 2007 when some Indian spectators roared at a Pakistani passenger bus working it’s way across just before the gates closed, Stop terrorism! or in 2001 when a Pakistani Ranger directed his rifle at Indian spectators.