India-Pakistan talks back on track
Agencies have just reported that talks in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani have ended. The two heads of state have unanimously agreed that talks are now back on track. “All that remains to be done is to define this track,” said a government spokesman.
A casual observer may be tempted to believe that this track does not exist. Or if it does, it does so in the form of one of those convoluted closed-loop railway sets, in which case we should conclude that these talks are now firmly back on track for another convoluted journey to nowhere. Just as well, the universe is likely to be like that too, we are told.
India-Pakistan talks are on track, we just don't know which
Reality, unfortunately, is more complex than that. Every single word of the press release is more complex than that. India is complex, Pakistan even more so. The talks are complex, with Gilani’s upper Multani accent (from the Saraiki-speaking belt) clashing violently with Manmohan’s Chakwali accent.
(Both governments have rejected this accusation claiming the discussion was anything but complex. In fact, it was a smooth exchange of personal views. “I engaged him in a discussion on India’s export trends and prospects for self-sustained growth in the post-Keynesian context, from 1885 to 1895 (my Mastermind topic),” said Manmohan Singh. Meanwhile Gilani remarked that “Manmohanji loved my stories about weekend shikars and daawats. And I congratulated him on his efforts to promote Indian Culture through programs like Rakhi Ka Swayamvar”.)
Likewise, the act of being back is complex. “In order to be back, you need to have gone somewhere, and somewhere to go to,” said logician Dr. Zakir Naik. “So far the talks haven’t really gone anywhere, so how can you be back from nowhere?” As for being “on”, the Pakistan government hasn’t really covered itself in glory – if their bollywood-policemanesque response to recent attacks is anything to go by.
So that brings us to “track”, which is the centrepiece of this press release (or is it talks? India-Pakistan perhaps?). What exactly do they mean by being “on track”?