A year ago, this day, I was strolling up and down the eastern bank of Swat River, taking a much-needed respite from four days of hectic reporting from the area where Frontier Constabulary posts were falling like ninepins to the approaching Taliban. The story was getting bigger by the day and some moments of calm were in order. If only...

The phone rang. The judges are being packed off, a source calling from Islamabad said. Rumours of emergency were in the air, there was growing tension between the Presidency and the Supreme Court and we knew that the country had come very close to a clampdown a week or so ago.

It now seemed like then-General-President Pervez Musharraf was going to cross the clichéd Rubicon. Just as I was shaking my head, the gizmo came alive again. The deed had been done. The Taliban suddenly disappeared from the radar screen. The bigger fish had eaten the now smaller one. The media is a sucker for the big one anyway.

Next stop Islamabad, en route to Lahore. The Taliban can wait. I heard Musharraf’s speech with the local district administration officers that night in a deserted Serena Hotel. Before dawn break, I was on my way back.

Looking back, the obvious question: has anything changed? Yes, in form; none in substance. The French too have their clichés: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Musharraf is gone; the king’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Q), is in disarray; elections have brought to power Pakistan’s largest political party, the Pakistan People’s Party, followed closely by Musharraf’s bête noire, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz; Asif Ali Zardari is now the president.

... contd.