By [Your Name]
There are some kinds of heartbreak the world doesn’t always see. The kind that happens quietly — not with explosions or protests, but in airport terminals and empty border checkpoints. That’s where the grief is sitting right now, as Pakistan has once again closed its airspace to Indian flights and shut down land border crossings for Indian citizens.
It’s not just politics. It’s people.
Parents who were waiting to see their children. Grandmothers who packed suitcases full of sweets. Couples separated by invisible lines drawn decades ago. Now they’re left holding flight tickets that lead nowhere, passports stamped with hope that won’t be honored.
The official reason? Escalating diplomatic tensions — again. Security concerns. Cross-border friction. Words we’ve all heard too many times.
But those aren’t the words that matter to the 70-year-old man who just wanted to attend his niece’s wedding in Amritsar. Or to the mother who was planning to visit her ailing father in Lahore one last time. These aren’t spies or threats. They’re family. Ordinary people, paying the price for a fight that isn’t theirs.
Wagah Border is quiet now. No daily flag-lowering ceremony. No tourists cheering. Just silence. And on both sides, disappointment.
One woman I spoke to had been planning her trip for months — her first time visiting Pakistan since her marriage to an Indian national 15 years ago. “Every time we get close, something happens,” she said. “Politics always wins. We always lose.”
This isn’t the first time borders have been closed, and it probably won’t be the last. But that doesn’t make it any less painful. For people with family on the other side, the India-Pakistan border isn’t just a political line — it’s a wound that never quite heals.
It’s strange, really. We have technology that lets us speak across the world instantly, but a 40-minute flight from Delhi to Lahore can become impossible overnight. It’s the human cost that gets buried under the headlines — the birthdays missed, the funerals unattended, the hugs that never happen.
And for what?
When leaders clash, when decisions are made behind closed doors, it’s always the most vulnerable who feel the impact. The old, the young, the ones who don’t care about war or rhetoric, only about the people they love.
Right now, families are grieving — not for lives lost, but for time lost. And in some ways, that’s even harder to get back.