My Lahore Bus tryst with PM Vajpayee

Raja Sansi International Airport, AMRITSAR: 19th February, 1999, inaugural trip of the Delhi-Lahore Bus. I was then posted as Director…

Adieu: See you in Lahore and, thereafter, in the heavens above.

Raja Sansi International Airport, AMRITSAR: 19th February, 1999, inaugural trip of the Delhi-Lahore Bus. I was then posted as Director State Transport, Punjab, responsible for running Punjab Roadways.

It was a clear and crisp late February afternoon. PM Vajpayee and his team arrived by a special plane at the Airport, ontime. I was a part of CM Punjab, Sardar Parkash Singh Badal’s team that received him at the tarmac.

There he boarded the Sada-e-Sarhad Bus for the first ever Lahore trip, via Wagah Border. I was too junior to be a part of the actual entourage but I still remember the scintillating optimism in his eyes and the warmth, plus firmness, of his handshake.

Wither have the Titans vanished or been banished?

There shall never be one like him.

Mourn him not that adorns the heavens above.

😢

RIP #AtalBihariVajpayee