The man replied that he didn’t care about illusions or her body as long as her feelings for him were real. They forgot all about the ominous episode and spent the rest of the summer in utter bliss. He would arrive at the orchard with no work besides sitting for hours on end with his lover, chatting and laughing without a care in the world. Until the night of 15 August 1947. As fate would have it, the two lovers fell on either side of the map – the Kashmiri ghost’s village across the mountains belonged to Pakistan, while the orchard worker’s farm belonged to India. The next morning, and the day after that, and in the weeks that followed, the man would go to the orchard and wait. He waited in the rain and snow, but the girl never came. One cold and starless night, he decided he couldn’t go on without her, and trekked through the dark wilderness of the Himalayas to trespass into Pakistan. Exhausted after the night-long trip, he slumped under a tree and slept like a log. As the sun rose, he woke up to a nightmare – to a ghost town that had been burned to the ground. Charred human bodies lay next to charred cattle. He walked all day in the surreal landscape of burned houses and decaying corpses until he turned a corner and threw up at the sight of a dog chewing on the flesh of a man – probably his owner. Night fell again without sight of a single living human, let alone his lover. The sound of artillery in the distance filled the air. He finally came across a fully intact house with a burning lamp. Upon entering it, he saw a figure cowering in a corner against the wall, with her head buried in her lap. ‘Is it you?’ he enquired softly. The girl looked up, and he saw the same cherubic face he had waited to see for so long.

‘How could you? How could you leave me out in the cold?’ he beseeched her for an explanation. ‘Why didn’t you come?’

‘How could I?’ she said without emotion. ‘You lay across the border, my love.’

Sarhad ke uss par – a pivotal dialogue that would also eventually become the title of Sahil’s film, albeit briefly.

‘What does it matter?’ the man exclaimed incredulously. ‘You are a ghost!’