Lahore and Delhi look the same. Sputtering rickshaws, broad roads, throbbing bits of greenery. At one point, of course, no borders divided our cities. And although you can’t tell a Delhi-wallah apart from a Lahori, slowly things are changing.

I’m a Lahori. I arrived in Delhi to do a two-month stint at a newspaper. Ostensibly a trip to acquaint myself with the print media in India — my parents are journalists, I’m a poor student, the reasoning worked like a charm — I’ve come really to explore India and familiarise myself with Pakistan’s vilified old neighbour.

When I stepped foot in Delhi, I was amazed by some basic changes I noticed since my last visit five years ago. Drivers were now wearing seatbelts, and all motorcyclists helmets. One is hard-pressed to find a seatbelt-strapped driver on Lahore’s frenzied roads. These are inconsequential changes on the face of it (I can imagine a couple of Pakistani friends scoffing in my face, ‘So you think Delhi is more advanced because they wear seat-belts? Har har har’). I do think Delhi is substantially more progressive than Lahore. The fact that women can drive motorbikes in most of urban India stands in glaring contrast to Pakistan where not a single woman would dare straddle a motorbike.

The concept of laissez-faire, socially and politically, does not exist in Pakistan. If you wear jeans on the street be prepared to be eyeballed by every man on the road, and don’t be surprised if Aunties — sitting smug in their lacquered four-wheelers — dab their faces with handkerchiefs at the sight of your shameless vulgarity.

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