Of course, members of his own delegation will whisper to you "don't take him seriously". Pakistani journalists, sometimes the most encouraging segment of that nation, will reassure you "even our army is more reasonable".

But the fact of the matter is that Gohar Ayub is Pakistan's foreign minister. How can someone in his position be allowed to pour such undiluted venom on India unless powerful elements in the Pakistani establishment sanction his unbridled speech. He cannot be dismissed lightly. He is clearly part of the orchestration.

Since excessive security made it difficult to reach most of the leaders assembled at Colombo, I telephoned a Pakistani official with a simple request: to balance my TV coverage of SAARC, I needed a statement or two from Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

I was instantly put in my place. I was welcome to his general Press conferencebut the only international agency to be favoured with an exclusive interview was CNN. However, Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub could spare some time for a TV interview with me.

The drill to reach the leaders securely parked at the Taj Samudra was elaborate. They, on their part, had to mobilise the Sri Lankan protocol officer who in turn would alert the security contingent which would send messages down an interminable row of checkpoints to facilitate our safe passage to Taj Samudra. We would be accompanied by an information officer and our vehicle would be escorted by armed police.

Intimidated in this fashion by the security paraphernalia, my TV crew and I reached Longdon room of Taj Samudra where Indian and Pakistani prime ministers had met the previous evening. At the far end of the room on a sofa sat Gohar Ayub in white salwar and achkan of impeccable cut. One would have expected an official or two in the room. But the foreign minister had clearly chosen not to be encumbered by suchattendance. In retrospect it now becomes clear that would have curbed Gohar Ayub's style.

"When will the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan meet?" I opened the interview.

"They have not met yesterday, they have not met today and it is unlikely that they will meet tomorrow".

I showed him the brief statement issued by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee after his meeting with Nawaz Sharif:

"Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and I have agreed that the dialogue process should be resumed and we have directed our foreign secretaries to meet today and tomorrow to work out the modalities of the resumption of the dialogue."

I asked him: "According to this statement your prime minister should have directed your foreign secretary to meet our foreign secretary. If such a directive was issued why would the foreign secretaries not meet?"

He chanted the refrain they-had-not-met-would-not-meet and so on. Then he swiftly glided into the Indian penchant for "backtracking". To avert the dialogue declining intoGohar Ayub's diatribe against India, I invited him to focus on the progress SAARC had made.

This gave him the opening to call Indian goods "rubbish" and how all the countries were better off buying from "China and Taiwan". Then a quick after-thought: "Sorry, we follow a one-China policy".

Without much deference to logical sequence, he somehow introduced into his monologue the "core issue of Kashmir" whose resolution was of the essence otherwise, he seemed to suggest, there would be nuclear war. Earlier, India had the bigger army and air force, but now, after the nuclear equaliser, India had better "take care".

He flew into a rage at my observation that India's nuclear weapon was not directed at Pakistan. He said India should not have a bloated image of itself. He suddenly burst into spasms of mocking, humourless laughter, short eruptions which seemed to be some sort of a substitute for something nasty he wished to say. Then he began to cut the air with his straightened palm, up and down. "You will beput through shredders," he said almost frothing in the month. "You will be put through shredders," he repeated with uncontrollable passion.

Once he was at this furious pitch, he poured out gems with great frequency. For instance, out of nowhere, "India had no capital before the Muslims came." Next, "the British handed the country to you on a platter -- they took it from the Moghuls and gave it to the Hindus".

By now, I was in a state of shock. "It was the national movement led by Gandhi which caused the British to leave", I protested. He asked with stunning crudeness, "Congress ne kitne angrez maarey?" (How many Englishmen did the Congress party kill?) I was speechless. He was trying to imply that the North West Frontier Province had done more for independence because they had actually "killed more Englishmen".

I do not remember ever having spoken to a leader so singularly lacking in self-control. Naturally, the video cannot be telecast but I intend to have a private screening possibly at theIndia International Centre so that friends can unravel the mystery of Gohar Ayub: Is he an aberration or the sole spokesman of a frightening segment of the Pakistani establishment?