FOR someone who had been deported five years ago from Karachi airport despite a valid visa, a one-year-old child in my arms and a Pakistani husband in the waiting lounge, this trip signified a personal vindication. It wasn't a return to the sasuraal but as a part of the Indian media party that I flew to Lahore to cover the prime minister's historic journey. I chuckled at the thought that the Pakistani authorities could not deport me this time round, at least not on an Indian Airlines charter. It seemed that I was destined to cause a flutter in the Pakistani ranks anyway. Whisked away from the airport by an adoring spouse for some serious hand-holding in Lawrence Gardens where our romance first flourished, I didn't realise our disappearance would worry others. That evening when a very sated yours truly turned up at the reception everyone's uncles seemed to have been looking for me. I swore to the charming and apparently civilian men that there had been no hidden agendas, saying with wide-eyed innocence: 'I am home. I was with friends and family. The Pakistanis shouldn't bother losing sleep, for my notoriety does not stem from withholding information but from saying too much and writing straight from the heart-including this time round.
