I have grown up in Lahore and consider myself a Lahori in all the important ways: a committed foodie, lazy and argumentative. But things in Pakistan haven’t been conducive to much conviviality of late. Working in Delhi at the Indian Express this summer and witnessing first-hand India’s bid to be a stakeholder in our globalised world, the situation at home appears gloomy. Less than a decade ago, India and Pakistan were hyphenated in social and political discourse. Things are different today.

General Pervez Musharraf’s government is at its most unpopular since the general seized power in a coup in 1999. I remember school got cancelled. I went up to the security guard and asked why. He shook his head: “Just go home.”

I ran into class the next day and as if we were all in on a morbid national joke, “Pakistan Studies” was the first class. Our history teacher told us Pakistan was poised to begin yet another bout of military rule. At home, we watched Musharraf’s first address to the nation, as millions of Pakistanis did, eager to process the general’s inaugural wisdom.

As the years rolled on, Musharraf became a bit of a hero in Pakistan. The press became freer, more women than ever before were elected to Parliament, the economy grew at unprecedented rates, India and Pakistan began talking peace in earnest, the general gave and took as America’s key ally in the so-called war against terror while touting “enlightened moderation” at home. When friends abroad asked how things back home were, I found myself praising Musharraf for his liberal outlook and practical mind.

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