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It’s not just the obvious things - food and language - that make Lahore and Karachi feel almost like home. At the gym at the Sheraton in Lahore I encountered a hugely overweight man who spent a desultory half hour on the exercise bike while glued to his phone. Perhaps this is a familiar sight in other countries too, but the only other place where I’'ve witnessed this check-the-box approach to a workout is India. Moral of the story: it’s easier to redraw national borders than to change mental habits.

Needless to say, not everything is familiar. In privileged pockets of Pakistan, the availability of alcohol at a party creates a frisson of excitement absent in India, where the well-off take the availability of wine or vodka or Scotch for granted. And despite the shared language, there’s always room for verbal miscues. “"We don’'t say ‘'bina’', we say ‘'baghair'’”, warns a friend as I order tea for us in Lahore. “"You’'re outing yourself.”"

Not surprisingly, Pakistan feels much more religious than India. Pakistani liberals bemoan the gradual replacement of the Persian "“khuda hafiz”" for goodbye with the harder-edged “"Allah hafiz"”. But on the street, at least in Lahore, the latter appears to have triumphed. The default greeting - even at a hotel that'’s part of an international chain - is not the secular "“good morning"” or its equivalent, but “"assalam aleikum”". Rooms come equipped with prayer mats. God is everywhere.

Cliches about the warmth of Pakistani hospitality are true. But you can also encounter kindness among ordinary Pakistanis that has nothing to do with a culture of looking after your guests. At the Pakistan International Airlines counter in Lahore, a young man helpfully suggests that I check my carry-on bag at the gate to avoid paying for excess baggage. In the Indian imagination, particularly on the Hindu Right, Pakistan brings to mind only fanaticism and violence. But a visitor can experience it instead as a land of many small kindnesses.

The Indian view of Pakistan is increasingly shaped by a kind of national hysteria, an inability to view the country dispassionately as a geographical space that happens to be inhabited by a kindred people whose ancestors were Indians. In general, educated Pakistanis are less ignorant about India than their Indian counterparts are about Pakistan. (They are alarmingly up-to-date on Bollywood gossip.) But here too distortions abound. For Pakistanis, India is north India. Indian politics is the politics of the Hindi heartland.

In which way is Pakistan different from India according to the author?

A) In India alcohol is not served in parties

B) In Pakistan alcohol is not served in parties

C) In Pakistan alcohol creates excitement in parties

D) In India alcohol creates excitement in parties