Pakistan, July 24 -- You ask me-

"What have you to do with Lahore? You're from Sukkur."

Let me tell you:

Every city that carries history

Will find a footprint of my dust,

Or a strand of my DNA pressed between its bricks.

My father was born in 1890, in Hoshiarpur.

In 1907, he walked the streets of Lahore as a student.

He studied medicine at King Edward Medical College-

Graduated in 1914,

One of its earliest doctors.

One of Lahore's own sons.

His haveli still stands in Qila Lachman Singh-

26 rooms, carved in time and ancestral breath.

The same breath I carry today.

So don't ask me what I have to do with Lahore.

I am Lahore.

I've seen the old Ravi,

Not in maps, but in memory.

I've seen it flow beside Badshahi Mosque,

Bath...