Fruits of our labour

Given the juicy Korean transactions with the Pakistanis, we should get our teeth into some.

Rogue Pakistani nuclear scientist AQ Khan seems to be leaking information faster than the crippled Fukushima reactor. The latest bit of information from Khan that is glowing in the dark is of the transactions between North Korea and Pakistan on nuclear and missile technology.

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Now for those of you who thought that this would be a highly secretive and complex manoeuvre involving secret accounts in the Cayman Islands and clandestine exchanges worthy of John le Carre, the truth is rather more mundane.

It simply involves sending over a box of cash hidden beneath some fruit and some emerald and diamond jewellery sets to the boys in the Pakistan army and the return gift will include the necessary components to rig up a nuke for a rainy day. Quite simple, no fuss at all.

But the fruits of such transactions could be bitter, even rotten. Let’s not forget that Zia-ul-Haq, that foremost proponent of the bomb was killed when a crate of mangoes on his flight allegedly exploded, leading to a riveting book on that subject. But we feel it could be worse.

Or it could be hidden under replicas of the dear duo in different poses. And the Pakistani generals must thank the lord that the Koreans thought of throwing in a bit of jewellery to keep the begums happy. We can’t quite see bottles of kimchi going down big in the swish circles of Rawalpindi.

Should India worry about all this? We think not. We could also play this game. We should start sending the Pakistani generals our own unique gifts.

Maybe we could send them a few versions of the Lokpal Bill along with a consignment of ‘I love Anna’ T-shirts. If nothing, this will confound the Pakistanis who are used to bills of a different kind.

Let us hope that this new version of track two diplomacy will bear fruit in the near future.