The oneness of two countries

The first three days of my stay in India confirmed what a growing number of people had told me - that there is little real difference between the two countries and especially the two Punjabs.

For three days I happily drifted along with this stereotype. Sure, Delhi has a thriving, seemingly active middle class but there is, as in Karachi and Lahore, a posh housing society set up by the armed forces (Delhi's Defence Colony is in parts remarkably similar in spirit and architecture to Lahore and Karachi's Defence Housing Authorities). The roads are also occasionally potholed and the Delhi taxi driver (mine was called, unsurprisingly I thought, Raju) could give his Karachi counterpart a real run for his rupee.

And as I took the Shatabdi Express out of Delhi to Chandigarh, I might have been in a curiously rickety yet contemporary train (it had plug points for laptop access!) that is unlikely to be seen in Pakistan, but outside, on the outskirts of the city, was the other face of Delhi. An endless stream of the most wretched slums, stuffed with tinned and mud excuses for housing - the kind so ubiquitous in the metropolis of Karachi - provided maybe the most startling reminder that Pakistan and India were both after all, one country once.

Chandigarh itself is surely the long-lost twin of Islamabad, partitioned quite possibly in time-honoured Bollywood fashion - at the Kumbh ka mela. Both are planned cities (from the 1950s) and evoke a similar sense of ominous, dislocated alienation in the evenings - the roads are incredibly smooth and wide and lined by enviable greenery. If Chandigarh benefits from the beauty of the Shivalik Hills, then Islamabad boasts the Margallas. Above all, both cities are mapped - as if in an unknowing ode to the soulless future depicted in Blade Runner - not in districts or suburbs but sectors.

But by virtue of being inhabited by the gregarious and ostentatious Punjabi, and not a foreign diplomat as is the case with Islamabad, Chandigarh is the more fashionable and with-it twin. There are bars, pubs, numerous restaurants, apparently some discotheques as well and a bustling marketplace in Sector 17 which will satisfy the most ardent shopaholic from across the border. Last night, in the centre of the marketplace, there was also a Pakistani poetry recital event.

By far the biggest difference, the most startling reminder that you are not in Pakistan comes from inside the PCA stadium in Mohali on my fourth day, the first of the Test match. In size, shape and design it is not a world away from the stadium in Rawalpindi.

The day before the game started, the stadium was home to typically subcontinent chaos inside; journalists scrambling for practice sessions, looking for media accreditation passes, the best seats in the press box, the best seats for the press conferences. All were trying to be handled by simultaneously amicable and intimidating security guards. But once the match got underway this morning, the stadium - and India - was transformed. From early in the morning, the stands were over three-quarters full.

Briefly, until the players appeared in their whites, I thought we were at a one-day match. Having watched the series last year surrounded by empty concrete and barely a whisper from the crowd, 15-18,000 colourful, jovial, loud Indians and Pakistanis for a Test match was as much a shock to the system as any. They banged drums, blew horns, waved flags, flew inane banners and all with unflagging enthusiasm.

The greater shock is the presence of, according to officials, approximately 3000 Pakistanis in Chandigarh and its surrounding areas to watch this Test. If that is the case, then there are more Pakistanis, and by a considerable margin, than appeared in the Lahore Test between the two sides last year; more, probably, than appeared in any of the tests from that series. Explain please?

One 25-year old fan from Lahore, using his Pakistani flag as a superhero's cape, explained that he had come here not just for the match. "I also wanted to explore at least some of India. Youngsters in both countries are educated from a young age to dislike India or Pakistan. But I wanted to explore the place myself and find out what it is like. Both countries are barely different." And why didn't he go explore some Indians at the Lahore test last year? "It's much easier watching it on TV." Unsatisfied, I persisted: But why come all the way over here, with all the bureaucratic hassle that is involved? Finally, sheepishly, he gave a clue when he asked about how he could go explore the "nightlife of Chandigarh, you know, disco-shisco."

And despite talk that the dosti-dosti bandwagon might have run out of steam, other fans were unequivocal that they had received a royal reception. And if some of the banners are to be believed - "I hate politics but I love cricket" and "We have only love for each other"- then maybe there is some more mileage, albeit limited in this dosti.