It took nearly twenty-five years, and a first-time female chief minister, to recognise that governance is not only about managing risks, but also about restoring colour, connection and a little joy to public life. Basant arrived like a rare breeze of fresh air for Lahoris who have watched their city decay from a cultural capital into unplanned housing societies, shrinking green cover, traffic chaos, informal settlements and recurring flash floods.

For the first time, Gen Z appeared genuinely taken aback, confronted by something unfolding outside their usual fortresses: screens. Many paused, momentarily unsure, as they gulped down the sudden shift from reel to real. It was the millennials, those who grew up in the 1990s, who stepped forward, guiding newer generations through a celebration they had only heard about. What struck me most was that even though the songs were over twenty-five years old, they felt startlingly alive, as if time had resumed from exactly where it had once been paused.

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One of the quiet joys of Basant was the revival of language itself. A whole vocabulary resurfaced in the air: gudda, patang, machar, pari, para,........

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