My best friend at school in Lahore was ordinary like me, except for one thing: she had an Indian grandmother.I was deeply envious of the connection. Nano wore saris and a chignon. She smoked cigarettes and spoke English. Accustomed to my Punjoo grannies with their kurtas and plaits, I thought Nano personified sophistication. Never mind that my Urdu textbook told me that India was Enemy No. 1. Never mind that we’d fought wars with them. To me, everything Indian back then was achingly cool.I’d been reared on wondrous tales of my mother’s childhood, a chunk of which was spent all over India. So while other kids dreamt of going to Disney World and meeting Cinderella, I longed to summer on a houseboat bobbing gently on a lotus strewn lake and zoom down Bombay’s Marine Drive in an open topped car with the wind in my hair and salt on my lips. But aside from my BF, who went occasionally to visit Nano across the border, I knew of no one who ever went to India any more. It was as if a door that had once stood tantalisingly ajar, had slammed shut forever. In the late ’70s, it opened just a crack. Suddenly, our TV antennae in Lahore started catching ‘India’.And there was Shammi Kapoor, gambolling down the very hills my mother had described. Rajesh Khanna courting a bashful Sharmila Tagore with that naughty smile. And Helen, swathed in rhinestones and feathers, sashaying around a nightclub. Languishing under General Zia’s repressive martial law, I longed to go somewhere as liberal. And fun. And free.Ten years later, my dream came true. Through favours granted by ‘high-ups’, BF and I wangled visas to Delhi. Humayun’s tomb, Qutub Minar and Lodhi Gardens were every bit as magical as I’d hoped. Indian textiles and jewellery were swoon-worthy. Delhi’s food was a revelation. Who knew vegetables could be so interesting?India’s indigenous book industry hadn’t quite taken off then, but the plethora of newspapers, magazines and local comic books astonished me. So did the number of bookshops and art galleries, and abundance of dance, music and theatre. General Zia had outlawed everything fun and fine about civic life. So Delhi’s vibrant cultural scene and political freedom was heaven for me.But in other ways, I was less impressed. We were staying in a posh locality, but it was all a bit, well, ramshackle. As in Lahore, roads were potholed and buses perilously overcrowded. There were piles of festering refuse and overflowing drains. Men leered and jostled just as they did back home. I remember being shocked by two things: the number of people who slept on street pavements at night, and the level of emaciation I saw in the faces of Delhi’s poorest. Our beggars looked positively robust. In 2006, my first novel was published in India and since then, I have been invited to several literary festivals and travelled all over.I have met many different people and made close friends. A lot has changed since my first visit in the ’80s. The ubiquitous white Ambassador is a rare sight now. I am dazzled by the talent of Indian authors and artists and impressed by the flair of its entrepreneurs. It’s polluted air notwithstanding, Delhi, too, has smartened up its act. The underground is efficient.Indira Gandhi Airport is shiny and glamorous. (But despite the banks of computers, every time I land, a mufflered man at immigration hands me a sheet of carbon paper – carbon paper! – and instructs me to fill out forms in triplicate.) When I visit India, friends ask how it is for us across the border. They read with concern about the bomb blasts, the targeted killings, the rising tide of blood. I tell them the truth: it is indescribably awful.But I see disturbing signs of the hatred and intolerance I have seen in Pakistan taking root in India too. Public lynchings of minorities; media trials of ‘traitors’ conducted by crazed TV anchors; violence against women; witch hunts of academics, activists and even (gasp!) Bollywood stars who speak out are all depressingly familiar. I also know that I’d be hard pressed to find the happy shiny people I saw in Kashmir ki Kali in that tragic valley today. No longer do I dream of bobbing houseboats.(Moni Mohsin is a Pakistani author)