I thought I would show Kristeen around Lahore so that we could fulfill that famous saying for her, “Jinai Lahore nai waikhia, o jamia ee nahi (whomsoever has not seen the city of Lahore, has not been born).” So, for Kristeen to be born, she needed to see some interesting places here. We went to the Lahore Fort.We took a rickshaw to Kashmiri gate (part of the walled city of Lahore). We walked around a bit and grabbed some tea. Somehow I have only spent time on the south side of the walled city and not the northern side, so I thought it would be fun to explore a bit of that too. There were lots of women’s clothing or cloth shops around there. We walked around and picked up a khamiri roti and some chai from the chai stall next door. The area is messy, with winding narrow lanes, dilapidated buildings and in some spots piles of trash. Despite that, I love it more than any other place.While the heat can be exhausting and finding your way and dodging motorcycles, rickshaws and donkey carts can be tough, there is something about the people. Not to romanticize too much, I mean there are all sorts of characters in the walled city, but I enjoy being able to walk up to a shop and ask questions and have bits of conversations along the way. Tea stalls and food spots are very male dominated as is so much of everywhere around us. The tea stall people picked up a bench and took it up a small flight of stairs to a nice spot perched above the street across from them for us to sit. We ate our delicious fresh bread followed by tea that they brought up for us.We watched people pass by and they watched us too. I’ve lost what anonymity I might have had before, and I am even more conscious of the challenges and male dominance of the places we go to, but I don’t want that to affect our ability to explore. With some basic precautions, it does not have to. There are certainly women walking about in the old city was well, but you can’t hide being an outsider. People stare all over the place, but in the walled city, they also tend to be nicer when you are walking around. If you are polite, they are generally more polite, or at least within each group I’m likely to find someone who is.After some tea, we walked the rest of the way to the Lahore Fort. I had never seen that side of the fort, so it was fun to see all the windows from the outside. We came to the main entrance. Things have changed. Cars no longer drive up to the main gate. They stop a ways from it and people walk the rest of the way. The first spot we came upon was the entrance Guru Arjun Dev’s Gurdwara and Raja Ranjit Singh’s Samadhi. The places of minority communities have controlled access due to very real security concerns. Every place has a lot more security as the country has been at war with itself for so long, caught between its own turmoil exasperated by external conflicts it has been forced into.So, after a bit of back and forth, we went in and sat in the Gurdwara for a bit, then looked at the samadhi. It is interesting that the samadhi is so ornate and huge, while the Gurdwara is so very simple. Kings really love themselves.Next we walked to the fort. There are bits that have been restored beautifully and hope for more of that to continue. It is massive. After much exploring, we head to Badshahi mosque and enjoyed the wonderful architecture there. I’ve seen these places many times in the last ten years, but it was really fun to share it with Kristeen.Afterwards we head to Hall road to follow up on leads for DV tape digitizing which I needed for my puppet film. Everything was closed due to a strike in response to a new government tax to be imposed on all financial transactions. So, we had some ice cream at Chaman and I think that was Kristeen’s favorite thing we did. We had khoya khajoor which was amazing. After a lot more walking around Mall road, we found our way to some food spots in Anarkali. I think it was safe to say that Kristeen had been born.