Provider,” says a prayer in Urdu poetry, “since you have decided to shower your blessings upon us, shower them in such abundance that our complaint against you alters dramatically: we then complain that there isn’t enough space to accommodate all that you have provided.” The couplet is loaded with the usual exaggerations of Urdu poetry. And yet, this New Year, the couplet flits in and out of the corridors of memory almost involuntarily.

I switch on BBC news before joining friends to usher in the new year. The lead business story is that in the July-September quarter GDP growth was 8.4 per cent, making India one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

The previous evening, Pakistan’s Deputy High Commissioner, Muanawwar Bhatti, has invited a sizeable group of Indian journalists to meet their two Pakistani colleagues who have come to interview Prime Minister Vajpayee on the eve of the SAARC Summit in Islamabad. Sometimes Indo-Pak media meets acquire the air of a poker game, with clued up journalists guessing the other person’s hand. But this one is so relaxed because everyone has understood the value of calibration since Vajpayee extended his hand of peace in Srinagar on April 18. Naseem Zehra’s TV interview with Vajpayee is, in my recollection, the first such that Vajpayee has given a Pakistani journalist.

New confidence building measures dominate the newspapers on New Year’s day. To cope with the new rush on visas, both countries have agreed to add 20 members to their respective High Commissions, making a total of 75 each. Pakistan seeks a further augmentation. India is cautions. Diplomats can now travel around the country. Not only are the Khokhrapar-Monabao routes on the Rajasthan-Sind border and the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad routes to be opened, but technical level talks have also been scheduled for the weeks beginning January 12 and 19 respectively.

A process is on which has to be laced in with the larger SAARC framework, which is what the summit is all about. On the bilateral track, events have to be introduced in such a way that there are no hiccups. Vajpayee has demonstrated a precise sense of timing for these events. It would be premature to suggest that he would invite Prime Minister Jamali to visit New Delhi in February because that would depend on the overall chemistry at Islamabad. But everything points to that chemistry being excellent.

Will Bangladesh’s demands on behalf of LDCs—Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives—have been accommodated in South Asia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) by the time the Summit meets? A SAFTA treaty will change the dynamics in South Asia. Pakistan’s psychological hesitation in describing India as “a most favoured” nation, so early in the proceedings, will have been circumvented in the new South Asian trade regime. These are massive gains for the SAARC process.

To resolve pending issues on the SAFTA Framework Treaty, a meeting of the Special Committee on Economic Co-operation was held in Islamabad in December. The draft could not be finalised. The meeting of foreign secretaries on January 1 and council of ministers on January 2 and 3 is crucial. New Delhi is confident that the Framework Treaty will be finalised for signing during the 12th SAARC summit.

The feel good factor that BJP leaders have been talking about has actually percolated down to all levels. Even the Congress is trying to shake itself out of the gloom in the New Year. A party, pulverised by its own leadership, is looking around if there are spaces left for it.

Actually, the spectre of elections on the horizons has invested the prime minister’s visit to Islamabad with unprecedented media interest. At last count, 315 Indian journalists from almost every state in the country have obtained visas for Pakistan. Some of this media enthusiasm can be explained by the simple curiosity about a country with which relations in the past have been tense.