Pakistan Air Force jets were spotted flying low through Lahore’s residential and market areas all week in what the PAF is calling patrols. Not to be beat, Indian statements suggesting that air strikes in Pakistan are necessary have been given airtime since the massacre in Mumbai. In Lahore, the response has been unreal. It seems nothing can shake Lahorees out of the mood they get in during wedding season. Even Musharraf was at a wedding yesterday, where journalists snuck in to get statements about the Pak-Indian tensions. He said he wasn’t worried about them. Neither was anyone else. After a bomb blast took place a stone’s throw from the posh Aitchison school this Thursday, Mall Road is still full of shaadi-traffic. Before wedding tents were pitched up, the public’s mind was still elsewhere. After India deployed its Border Security Force during December’s first days, reporters were dispatched to collect opinion in the markets. They returned with public vitriol about the hike in onion prices.

Pakistani News TV has been busy remembering the life of Benazir Bhutto and the brutal way it was lost this day, last year. With all the trauma that’s transpired in twelve months, it’s no surprise there’s been no public outrage about attacks from India. Most already think their country’s being lead down the gallows by the United States; the fighting up north has already left Pakistanis emotionally exhausted. I’ve never felt the fatalism prevail in Lahore in the two years I’ve spent here. From all quarters, people have given up on their country. Chirpy graduates share plans about leaving the country. The urban working class say the country is out of their control; that America and Israel call all the shots now. And everyone I’ve encountered thinks I’m foolish for ever leaving Boston.

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