The pucca accent of Jaswant Singh, the PM's favourite roving envoy, has always been an indication of New Delhi's determined attitude to focus on the substance of the Indo-US dialogue, rather than even hint at the scandal sheet of America.

Representing India, on the British Airways flight to Washington this weekend, are four people: apart from Singh, there's the understated foreign secretary K Raghunath; joint secretary Alok Prasad from the `Americas' desk in the ministry of external affairs; and his colleague Rakesh Sood, joint secretary responsible for disarmament. In the US, they will be joined by India's ambassador Naresh Chandra.

These, then, are the motherland's sharp-shooters, three constants and two variables who have been on the previous three rounds of talks in Washington, Frankfurt, and NewDelhi. Back home, in the shadows, is the pint-sized Mukta Tomar, director in the `Americas' desk, valiantly providing inputs to those above.

Across the table from Singh and company, when the talks formally start on Monday morning, will be some of America's most influential men: Strobe Talbott, US deputy secretary of state; Karl Frederick Inderfurth, assistant secretary of state for South Asia in the State department; Matthew Daley, special advisor for South Asian affairs; Bruce Riedel, senior director in the National Security Council; and Robert Einhorn, deputy assistant secretary for non-proliferation in the bureau for politico-military affairs, a specialised beat in the State department.

India's `fab five' are evenly matched with the US team, but the similarity ends there. Talbott and gang have the weight of the US establishment behind them, the world's remaining superpower even in these confessional times.

Einhorn, an arms control specialist, has worked on his beat in the bureau for some 8 years -- abureau which deals with issues as varied as peacekeeping and East-West non-proliferation issues. (This is besides the arms control and disarmament agency, in the act of being merged with State.)

Riedel has been back and forth in the Pentagon, and some say in the CIA. Daley, number two in the New Delhi mission until last year, is the hands-on person, the one who perhaps knows contemporary India best -- he was pulled out of the Bosnia desk after the Indian nuclear blasts in May and seconded to the Talbott team.

Compare the gargantuan State department -- America's foreign ministry which employs some 5,000-odd people -- to the Indian foreign office, where 500-odd people work. Admittedly its an unfair or an unequal comparison, between cabbages and kings, especially since New Delhi has currently no claims to great power status.

But having taken on the world by exploding five nuclear devices in May, the lasting impression is of a ministry that is so snowed under with work that it cannot have an institutionalmemory. The dialogue with America is a classic example: two officials, Prasad and Tomar, primarily provide the political inputs, while Sood is responsible for the non-proliferation action.

``We're fire-fighting all the time,'' says one official. Even if the system doesn't allow larger territorial divisions, there are no research teams attached to any of the more important desks. Across South Block, in the ministries of Defence and Science & Technology, there are some Internet buffs who voluntarily scan the Net and pass on what they think some of their colleagues may like. Candles routinely burn at both ends.

But sometimes there are moments of light. Like when the Los Angeles Times judged the MEA website (meadev.com has had an average of 1.2 million hits monthly for the past 8 months) the `pick of the month' in June, primarily because of the nuclear-related information loaded on to it.

One of the first things Jaswant Singh told Strobe Talbott, in words to the following effect: ``We're nothere to trade or bargain. Some things are given, like a minimum nuclear deterrent.'' Unlike Pakistan, he was implying, India wasn't begging the US to lift its economic sanctions.