February 9, 2001Islamabad / Lahore / New DelhiLate Night → Morning Briefs
By midnight, the radio call had mutated into something no newsroom could ignore.
Every channel replayed it.
Not once. Not as a clip. As a loop—because anchors discovered that when Nabi Bakhsh's voice cracked, viewers stopped changing channels. When Jatinder Singh said "my mother died waiting," studios fell silent as if the microphones had become ashamed of their usual noise.
It wasn't just "viral."
It was a floodgate.
In Lahore and Amritsar, people stood in groups outside electronics shops watching TV screens like it was wartime coverage. In Delhi and Islamabad, officials watched the same footage with a different kind of dread: not fear of emotion, but fear of what emotion demanded next.
Because the call did not end with nostalgia.
It ended with a question.
"Will we meet?"
And once that question was asked on air, it became politically illegal to ignore.
The Demand That Followed
By morning, a new slogan was forming organically across Punjab—spoken more than chanted:
"Let them meet."
Not "sign a treaty."
Not "solve Kashmir."
Just: let them meet.
Callers flooded radio stations. Letters hit newspaper offices. Community leaders appeared in small press conferences with lists of names. The demand split into two practical options, both heavy with symbolism:
Wagah — the most visible border gate, already a daily theatre
Kartarpur — the new corridor, now glowing with devotion
And with the demand came an equally obvious implication:
If governments didn't create a controlled meeting mechanism, people would try to force one.
Which meant crowds.
Which meant a saboteur's dream.
Shaukat Aziz Brings a Different Kind of Solution
In Islamabad, Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz entered the room with a folder that didn't look like security at all. It looked like a banker's proposal.
He didn't begin with emotion. He began with architecture.
"Sir," he said, "the radio call created an uncontrollable demand. We have to channel it into a controlled space."
Musharraf looked up. "Kartarpur."
"Yes," Shaukat said. "But also… Wagah."
Mahmood frowned. "Wagah is a ceremony zone."
"Then make it a marketplace," Shaukat replied.
The room went still. The idea sounded absurd—until it didn't.
Shaukat opened the folder and spoke like a man presenting a revenue model, not a national security project.
"We convert the Wagah border ritual into a Wagah Bazaar concept," he said. "Outside the gates, entry control remains strict. Inside, people can move freely within a sealed zone. Trade happens inside. Families meet inside."
Mahmood's eyes narrowed. "Smuggling."
Shaukat didn't flinch.
"No," he said. "Structure."
He tapped the page.
"Custom duty is paid only when goods exit the controlled zone," he continued. "You can create licensed stalls. You can barcode inventory. You can track vendors. No loose flow. No uncontrolled cash chaos. The bazaar is not the border. It is a buffer."
Musharraf's gaze sharpened.
"And families?"
Shaukat nodded.
"We treat reunions like a managed event," he said. "Time slots. Scheduled meeting lanes. Escorts. A controlled 'reunion hall' inside the zone."
He paused, then added the line that made even hard security men understand the logic:
"We stop it from becoming a stampede by turning it into a program."
Aditya, inside, felt the familiar IAS response: this is a service-delivery problem. If you deliver it cleanly, you win legitimacy. If you delay it, the public creates its own delivery mechanism—and that's always ugly.
VVIPs at the Border
Shaukat went further—because he understood something soldiers often underestimated:
People remember how you treat them.
"You provide transportation at government expense," he said. "Bring selected families from both sides on controlled buses. Make it dignified. Make it punctual. Make it humane."
Mahmood's expression was skeptical. "At government expense?"
Shaukat's reply was immediate.
"Yes," he said. "Because the return is not financial only. The return is narrative."
He turned a page.
"You treat these reunion families like VVIPs," Shaukat said. "Separate lanes. Seating. Water. Medical support. Staff trained not to humiliate. Cameras positioned for dignity, not spectacle."
He looked at Musharraf.
"This will be gold," Shaukat said. "Not as propaganda. As proof."
Proof that the state wasn't only guarding borders.
It was healing them—carefully, measurably, and under control.
The Money Arrives
Then Shaukat dropped the second half of the file—the part that made the room feel suddenly smaller.
"Brand proposals," he said.
A list of names. Media houses. Sponsors. Cross-border conglomerates.
Some offers were modest. Some were aggressive.
One proposal stood out like a bomb disguised as a gift.
"Sahara Group," Shaukat said, voice neutral, "has floated an offer through intermediaries. Five hundred million for broadcast and commercial rights around the Wagah Bazaar concept—if both sides agree to package it as a 'historic reunification initiative.'"
Mahmood stared. "Five hundred million?"
Shaukat nodded once.
"For the television ecosystem," he said. "This is not charity. This is an entertainment product with a humanitarian face."
Musharraf didn't react outwardly. He had learned not to show hunger in front of men who could smell it.
But Aditya's mind immediately saw the strategic value:
Money is not just money.
Money creates stakeholders.
Stakeholders defend systems.
And systems survive incidents better than slogans.
The New Reality
By late afternoon, Delhi had the same brief. India's ministries were already fighting internally: foreign policy caution versus domestic pressure, security paranoia versus Sikh sentiment, opposition shouting versus public tears.
But none of them could escape the same truth:
The radio call had changed the frame.
This wasn't "India-Pakistan diplomacy" anymore.
It was "Punjab's demand."
And Punjab's demand did not sound like ideology.
It sounded like an old man's voice saying:
"My mother died waiting."
In Islamabad, Musharraf closed Shaukat's folder slowly.
He looked at the Wagah line on the map.
Then at Kartarpur.
Two gates.
Two opportunities.
Two crowds.
And one looming certainty: the more beautiful the reunion story became, the more violently the spoilers would want to ruin it.
Musharraf stood.
"Draft the Wagah Bazaar framework," he said. "But keep it sealed, disciplined, and dignified."
Mahmood asked the real question.
"And the security?"
Musharraf's answer was flat.
"We over-secure," he said. "And we under-show."
He paused.
"Let them feel welcomed," he added. "But let no one slip through."
As the meeting ended, Aditya realized the corridor had done what it was designed to do:
It had made peace contagious.
And contagion always triggers quarantine attempts.