Across the boundary

Some friends i met last week, 
which happened to be the first time ever!
Though we've known each other for a long time.
— more than three years now, actually.
Would have been impossible to interact,
and keep in touch constantly,
recognize each others' face and voice,
share videos, verses and songs...
if it weren't for Internet.
Anywhichway, we finally came face-to-face
in a rather strange city.
No melodrama. Pure excitement. Simple broad hugs.
Silly jokes to start with and political debates to end.
Otherwise done via online messages.
It could have been home though.
If not mine, then theirs
— Bombay, Karachi, Islamabad, Pindi or Lahore.
But that's now how it works perhaps.
Bureaucracy sucks.
Big time.
As a subcontinental past scratches the present. 
By two nations separated at rebirth.
Sad.
So near, yet so far.
Too big a price paid for being neighbors.