AT THE LAHORE KARHAI It’s a great day, Sunday, when we pile into the car and set off with a purpose – a pilgrimage across the city, to Wembley, the Lahore Karhai. Lunch service has begun – ‘No beer, we’re Muslim’ – but the morning sun squeezed into juice, and ‘Yaad na jaye’ on the two-in-one. On the Grand Trunk Road thundering across Punjab to Amritsar, this would be a dhaba where the truck-drivers pull in, swearing and sweating, full of lust for real food, just like home. Hauling our overloaded lives the extra mile, we’re truckers of another kind, looking hopefully (years away from Sialkot and Chandigarh) for the taste of our mothers’ hand in the cooking. So we’ve arrived at this table: the Lahore runaway; the Sindhi refugee with his beautiful wife who prays each day to Krishna, keeper of her kitchen and her life; the Englishman too young to be flavoured by the Raj; the girls with silky hair, wearing the confident air of Bombay. This winter we have learn to wear our past like summer clothes. Yes, a great day. A feast! We swoop on a whole family of dishes. The tarka dal is Auntie Hameeda the karhai ghosht is Khala Ameena the gajjar halva is Appa Rasheeda. The warm naan is you. My hand stops half-way to my mouth. The Sunday light has locked on all of us: the owner’s smiling son, the cook at the hot kebabs, Kartar, Rohini, Robert, Ayesha, Sangam, I, bound together by the bread we break, sharing out our continent. These are ways of remembering. Other days, we may prefer Chinese . Plz give summary.