This is what happens when foreign ministers of India and Pakistan start talking after a gap of nine years. India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar. They liked each other’s voice, so they returned for a second round of talks after the first and all in a matter of 24 hours!

This event doesn’t need the nuance normally reserved for diplomacy. This was “indication that these talks explored the idea of resuming some form of cricketing ties between the two countries!” The talks took place on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting of the Council of Heads of Government.

Indian media gave S Jaishankar a build-up reserved for the emperors of yore, when there was no Pakistan. When Jaishankar took a morning walk in the Indian High Commission compound, flanked by security and a couple of ladies in sneakers, it became a celebrity photo-shoot. Jaishankar in dark glasses was the symbol of macho Indian foreign policy.

The Pakistani hoi-polloi loved it, not Jaishankar’s dark glasses or the thought of India-Pakistan resuming talks, but the hope that India and Pakistan will once again trade inswingers and outswingers with a kilo of trade in tomatoes thrown in. Pakistanis will not starve for lack of ‘aata’ and Indians can hop over for a plate of ‘chappli kebab’.

It is torture to even think that ties between India and Pakistan have remained frozen for such a long time – 10 years! And, please, don’t add that the thought of resuming talks is still preliminary and “needs to be thought through.” Give us a break, bro!

A window is open, no? Next, the Champions Trophy! Pakistan is hosting the cricketing event. Imagine the ramifications if India joins Pakistan on the pitch and it is perfect to bowl and bat and break ice? Virat Kohli and Babar Azam? Make it somebody who doesn’t halt the match when the Azan sounds.

Like the journalist wrote, “There was already a guessing game on whether the Indian team would travel to Pakistan for the matches.” This, after a Pakistan foreign ministry spokesperson said, “We hope that India will try to take steps to bring a situation to create a condition for peace and dialogue in the region.”

What better condition than playing cricket, the environment when people are not on the nervous edge but on the edge of their seats in the cricket stadium. India and Pakistan are always at each other’s throats, India and Pakistan greet each other with full-throated cries. We are two nations, like Mohammad Ali Jinnah correctly said, but one soul, like Jinnah, thank God, didn’t even try to say.

Jaishankar and Ishaq Dar met at the dinner hosted by Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for SCO leaders at Sharif’s residence. They say it was ‘Ishq’ at first sight. Jaishankar and Dar exchanged pleasantries, shook hands and conversed over what’s on your plate and what’s on my plate.

But one dinner wasn’t sufficient for the kind of appetite the two had for talks. So, Wednesday, the day after the dinner, the two met for lunch at the end of the SCO plenary session. Table manners included seating Jaishankar and Dar next to each other, ensuring India-Pakistan love blossomed unfettered and unhindered.

This was when talk veered to cricket — a game S. Jaishankar is in love with. How many Indians didn’t know that? Pakistan’s Interior Minister Syed Mohsin Raza Naqvi, who is Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, who joined the two, did know Jaishankar's weakness and he played the googly that floored India’s EAM — exploring the possibility of resuming cricketing ties before exchanging barbs over Kashmir!

Will the India cricket team travel to Pakistan for the Champions trophy — one window opened? The premier cricketing event will take place in Pakistan from February 19 to March 9, 2025. Doesn’t it smell like this was in the pipeline all along and both the countries had planned it beforehand? Nothing could have stopped this, neither territorial integrity, nor terror incidents and what have you not!

The word is that the “the atmospherics were good” at this SCO meet in Islamabad unlike in the May 2023 Goa SCO meet. Talk of Rahul Gandhi's “Mohabbat ki Dukaan” in Islamabad and “Nafrat ki Dukaan” in Goa where Bilawal Bhutto Zardari met the intractable Jaishankar while Muhammad Ishaq Dar got to rub shoulders with the amiable and open version of Jaishankar in Islamabad.

But then, Dar kept away from butting in with Jammu and Kashmir and Article 370. Perhaps, the elections in J&K also softened the curved ball. There wasn’t any mention of “terror”. In Goa, Jaishankar had called Bhutto-Zardari “spokesperson for the terrorism industry.”

That Pakistanis can be friendly blokes was the tone and tenor of the sidelines of this SCO meet — Pakistani ministers were in their best behaviour and Jaishankar was the pride of the “guests of Pakistan.” Jaishankar, on his part, played ball by ball, posting sweet nothings on the ‘X’ platform, rounding off with “Departing from Islamabad. Thank PM @CMShehbaz, DPM & FM @MIshaqDar50 and the Government of Pakistan for the hospitality and courtesies.” Pakistan has opened a small window, for cricket and trade and political dialogue, shouldn't India open the door? (IPA Service)