You must initially have a fascination for what lies across the border. No, an obsession. For only obsession can get you across the world’s second most militarised border. The Indo-Pak Border. The Wagah Border. The Radcliffe Line. However you may want to call it.

It’s not that easy to just put your feet on one side of the ‘Line of Control’ and the other across it, whether you’re in Pakistan or in India. It takes a lot more than courage to do that. You must find an excuse first. Nay, a ‘reason for visit’ and no, tourism is off the table. There’s no such thing as a ‘Tourist Visa’ when it comes to these two countries. You can only dream about strolling on the beaches of Goa, sitting in Lahore, which is merely 25 kilometres away from the other side. So close, yet so far. Or if you come from that side, you can only watch what the bustling streets of Karachi look like in two-second shots on Pakistani soap operas on YouTube. So you’ve really got to be obsessed with the idea of crossing that border to actually see what lies beyond, in person. That is, if you get the visa.

For that, you must have a family on the other side. Even distant relatives work. Divided families—collateral damage of the Partition—is an excellent excuse to get the ‘Family Visit Visa’. Or if you’re a religious minority, you can always say you want to visit a temple or a shrine. But, you should be very religious to do that or at least play the part.

If you manage to convince them enough, they might just issue you the ‘Pilgrimage Visa’. Finally, you could be terribly sick and need urgent medical attention—the kind that is not available on your side of the border that is. Maybe you have a rare blood disease or one of those deadly tumours in your brain. Perhaps they’ll have compassion on you and grant you a ‘Medical Visit Visa’. Make sure all your medical records are in order for that though or you might just die waiting. And waiting.

Or you could just do what I did. Find a university to sponsor you (that means take responsibility for you) and get their government to give you a ‘Student Visa’. But believe me, it’s not as simple as you might think. Firstly, the university should be absolutely dazzled by you and be liberal enough to invite you to study there in the first place. Be ready to be their token student from across the border and having your pictures plastered over every diversity promotional poster. Sometimes you might even have to give interviews and video testimonials waxing lyrical about your experience.

Getting accepted in a university is the easy part though. The real challenge comes after. Will you even get the visa to go and study there? But even that comes later. First, you’ll have to fight with your family to let you go to the ‘enemy country’ at all. Being rebellious from the start—the metaphorical black sheep of the family—helps. Still, the dangers of sending one’s child to a country that was once part of theirs but suddenly became an ‘enemy’ almost 77 years ago cannot be ignored. That’s what fractured bodies become after all—enemies. Sometimes they are broken beyond repair. But that must not deter you. As I said, obsession is key in all this.

The obsession to do something not many have done. The obsession to defy your family, your ideological conditioning by the State since you were a child. The obsession to cross that line, which was more or less arbitrarily drawn by some foreign man decades ago. They say he locked himself up in his haveli in Undivided India for two weeks to do it out of the five he was given to decide the fate of millions of people. If you see the map however, it just looks like a jagged line carelessly scribbled on a piece of paper, given by a mother to her child throwing a tantrum, to keep him occupied.

Now let’s say you manage to convince your family or still decide to go against their will, you need a visa. Not just a visa for any country. A visa to enter ‘enemy’ grounds that is most difficult to obtain. Now read carefully. This is what you need to do. I am telling you it worked for me, it might just work for you too. After you apply for the visa, you’ve got to wait. You’ve got to be patient like you’ve never been before. You can’t make plans to go outside your home country because your passport will be stuck at the other’s embassy, waiting just like you, to be stamped with their approval, or be returned, rejected. At some point, your patience will start to thin and anxiety will start creeping in. Will you get it before you are supposed to be there for your classes to start? When should you book your flight? The closer you book to leaving, the more expensive the tickets are going to be. Mind you, there is no direct flight to visit either side, so you will have to first go to a third country, usually some place in the Middle East like Dubai or Qatar and get a connecting flight from there. There is always the option of travelling by land and I would recommend that. It’s not only cheaper but the feeling you get when you cross that physical border, step onto the few feet of no man’s land or as they call it ‘Toba Tek Singh’ after the great writer, Manto’s short story (which you must also read), is indescribable. But before we get there, we have to get you that student visa.

Two to three weeks before your departure, you’ve absolutely got to start calling them up like crazy. I am serious. Like your deranged ex who just wouldn’t leave you alone. That’s how obsessed you must need to be in order to make sure you get it. Call them every day every hour, sometimes twice within an hour, during their working hours. They don’t usually answer, so be ready to be disappointed every time you call. Until magically one day, someone picks up. Then you grovel. “Sir, please sir, please give me an update on my visa.” If the person on the other end takes pity on you, you’ve got one foot in the door. “Tell me your passport number,” they must say. Once you do, they’ll explain where the issue lies and you’re the one who has to figure out a way to resolve it.

Don’t worry, I’ve got you. First, you have to inform your university to put some pressure on their government to grant you that visa. They need to give them constant reassurances that they take full responsibility for your actions. You’re going there to study, not blow them up to bits. Next, you have to start emailing people. Important people in high places in your own country that might know some important people in their embassy. “Please sir, please put in a good word for me. I will be forever grateful for this favour.” Finally, if you’re desperate enough like I was, you need to write a heartfelt letter to their High Commissioner at the embassy. Be a little dramatic and tell him how you want to be a diplomat just like him and represent your country in his to promote peace and friendly relations between the two nations. Write that going to study in his country has always been your dream and how indebted you would be to him if he made it come true. There is no guarantee that the letter will even reach him or if he will ever read it; it’s a shot in the dark and you must take it.

If you follow these steps and luck is on your side, I am confident you will get the visa. Then you just need to get to the actual border, in Lahore or Amritsar, whichever side you’re on and then let the whole thing unfold. Take in it because this is definitely a milestone and might just be your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to the other side. It will definitely be a little or a lot daunting. There will be several checkpoints once you enter the border complex at which you will need to show your passport and answer the same questions again and again. “What’s the purpose of your visit?” “How long are you going for?” “Where are you going to study?” At some, they might even do a body search and check your bags. But don’t worry, as long as you don’t have anything suspicious on you, you’ll be just fine.

You’ll have coolies haggling to let them take your bags, take you through the immigration process and then to the actual ‘Line of Control’. Some might even be bold enough to attempt to put your bags on a trolley. The state is paying them peanuts, so their rates have probably doubled by now. However, they do hard labour under the scorching sun, so it’s always nice to hire one. Once you’re done with the immigration, you’ll be hounded by the money exchangers as you exit the building to walk towards the line that could change your destiny forever. You can’t take your country’s currency across that line or you’ll be imprisoned, so you have to exchange whatever money you have on you with theirs. If you’re going from Pakistan, the rates are pretty steep. You don’t really have a choice at that point though. Beggars can’t be choosers. If you’re coming from India, well, you’ll still get a lower rate, but you’ll walk away with at least double in their currency.

Once the money situation is taken care of, you’re going to be walking towards ‘it’. Towards the moment you had been waiting for all those months. Maybe your whole life. You will see two huge iron gates, trying to compete with each other—whose is bigger. You will also notice the flags, again trying to outdo one another. One is definitely towering over the other but don’t be fooled, by the time you travel back home, it is quite possible that the other one is soaring above even higher. Your eyes will then fall on the arena they have created for people to watch a bunch of men parade their fragile egos every evening to entertain the roaring crowds as they put on a display to prove they are stronger than the other. Finally, you will face the army men stationed at the gates to guard it with their lives. As you approach the ones on your side, you will be asked for your passport yet again. They’ll flip through the pages to make sure they can really let you exit your home ground with questioning eyes as to why you would even want to cross over in the first place. Let them. It’s none of their business.

Once the guards are satisfied you have permission to enter the ‘enemy’ soil, they will push that heavy gate with all their might to let you through. Still, reluctantly. And now comes the moment of truth—when you step across the faded white painted line and think to yourself, ‘So this is it? At least they could have used better paint!’ You’ll be tempted to take a picture of one foot in your homeland and one on the other side, straddling the line in the middle and if you’re lucky and quick enough, you will, before the guards tell you to move ahead or that pictures and videos are not allowed.

Now you’ll be in No Man’s Land—a few feet of grey concrete which belongs to neither of them. It’s free, and for a moment, you will feel that way too—free. If you’ve read Toba Tek Singh, you might even have a momentary desire to plant your legs there like him and not move. But the guards ahead on the other side will have already broken your fictional reverie by opening their gates. So you’ll just trudge along and hand them your passport as one of them stretches their hands out for it. Once he, too, is satisfied that you’re allowed to enter, he’ll let you through.

Congratulations. You made it. Welcome to the other side. Your life will never be the same again.

Maliha Khan is a freelance writer based in Karachi who writes both fiction and non-fiction

All facts and information is the sole responsibility of the writer