• Now listen to the story from the other end. What exasperated Vajpayee most of all was Musharraf’s cocky “decisiveness”. “You are the prime minister, I am the president, if we agree on something, let’s sign,” he would say, while at the same time making changes on the draft of a likely agreement and asking Vajpayee to okay it. He simply wouldn’t buy Vajpayee’s argument that he had a cabinet to go back to. “Par aap prime minister hain. Aap faisla keejiye (but you are the prime minister, you decide),” Musharraf would say. So when Vajpayee briefed his aides and fellow members of the Cabinet Committee on Security (who, barring George Fernandes, were in Agra), he said about his counterpart pretty much the opposite of what he said of him: “He is in such a hurry. Kuchch sochne ko taiyyar nahin hain. Sub kuch faisala abhi chahte hain, kaise samjhaoon bhai.” Or words to that effect.

• In the main lounge of the Congress Centre at Davos, Switzerland, where all kinds from heads of state to global corporate leaders to rock stars to ordinary journalists congregate and rub shoulders during the World Economic Forum January meeting, I found my old friend, Pakistani journalist, part-time politician, now a full-time exile, Boston University professor and also an Indian Express columnist, Husain Haqqani. As we exchanged gossip, Tariq Aziz walked past, accompanied by a couple of minders, perfectly cut suit, pompous, smug smile and all. Just that morning he had lectured many of us senior editors over breakfast, laying down the law for India: nothing would move, the gas pipeline, even the permission to Indian private airlines to fly to Pakistan unless the “core” issue was addressed. Again there was some admiration for his confidence and clarity even among the Indian contingent as he was “so unlike our bumbling politicians”.

... contd.