New Delhi, Sept. 29 -- This past June, an elderly man was found stranded in no-man's land on the Bangladesh-India border. For 24 hours, he and his nationality were shoved from one flank to the other. In the sweltering heat, border officials of both countries kept grilling Shosti Chandra Barman - a man caught in the bureaucratic gears of a painful Partition trauma who couldn't remember where he belonged.

Alone and confused on land none is allowed to wander, Barman might as well have landed from Mars. For India's Border Security Force (BSF) and Border Guard Bangladesh, the neighbouring countries are analogous to Earth and Mars - Mars, of course, being the 'other' alien nation for each side.

But Barman, perhaps, just wanted to return 'home...