FORGET THE NEIGHBOUR

21

Occasionally, foreign policy commentators view Indo-Pak relations through the prism of the diplomatic environment prevailing in the early Nineties. Those days the Indo-Pak hyphen was a key aspect of the dialogue process. The universal assumption was that with the US and Western Europe backing Pakistan, India was a socialist relic, yet to snip its umbilical cord with Russia. Americans thought of India as an impoverished republic practicing some kind of fake democracy with excessive state control. It was in American interests to look at a bracketed Indo-Pak relationship and be committed to Pakistan at a time when Russian forces had invaded Afghanistan. India was nowhere near being a strategic or a market ally of the US. That is why I ask the disappointed commentators, depressed after the recent Indo-Pak negotiations at Sharm-al-Sheikh in Egypt not to worry too much about what many insist is an inexplicable Indian capitulation. Let....

Off The Wall

2

"Before you judge me try hard to love me" from Childhood. Comparing Michael Jackson to the prodigious Mozart gives undue respect to the pop genre. But there's no denying like a true artist, Michael enjoyed an enviable chemistry with his environment and his audience. His songs, his moonwalk and the way he frittered away his hard-earned fortune, hosting lavish parties at his Neverland Ranch made him a cult figure. His skin ailment and innumerable plastic surgeries added to the curiosity value. His alleged incursions into the freakish realm of child molestation lent his life-story a malefic dimension. Michael himself was a complete entertainment package long before his obituary was written and his body packed forever in a gold-plated casket. Michael Jackson was a phenomenal talent. After he had grown out of Jackson Five and the audience had been alerted about his breathtaking freshness in Off the....