We seem to have got it wrong both ways. Before Agra, especially in the build-up to it, we hitched our expectations to the stars thus inducing a state of excitement breathlessly awaiting fulfilment. After Agra everyone concerned seems to be protesting too much in trying to explain why the summit was not a failure. Both approaches are misplaced.

This was an encounter like no other in Indo-Pak summitry and for a change Pakistan was not responding to Indian moves. Rather, from the moment Musharraf took the salute from his generals in Lahore and got on his plane for New Delhi, the centre of attention, the focus of what quickly became saturation media coverage, was Pakistan and its military president.

Because private TV channels in India do their own thing and are not tied to the apron strings of the ministry of information as is the case in Pakistan, and because real news was hard to come by, each network competed with the other to analyse (literally) every step Musharraf and his Begum took, every gesture they made. It made for awfully tedious television at times but at least Pakistan or its president could not complain of lack of attention.

From a country which not long ago was refusing to have any truck with Musharraf and would not take his name without mentioning Kargil in dark undertones, and which could not mention Pakistan without throwing in the phrase "cross-border terrorism", what more could we have asked for?

Retaining perspective is not amongst the leading Pakistani virtues. Thanks in no small measure to Musharraf's endless interviews and briefings, we were needlessly euphoric before the event as if, going to a Yalta or a Potsdam, he was about to redraw the subcontinent's lines. Thanks in large part to the zero credibility of Pakistani official sources, first and foremost Pakistan Television, and to the communication skills of Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar-- a great negotiator behind closed doors but a champion of wooden exposition outside-- the impression that has spread is of a limp outcome. Or at least of something far below Pakistan's expectations. To take such a view is to see things through the wrong end of the telescope.

Forget the missing declaration or joint statement. Another barren piece of paper stuck with empty cliches would not have lit the skies above the Himalayas. But it would have looked odd against the backdrop of the pre-summit hype and back home would have been a tough act to explain. Musharraf has been spared the predicament of defending another Tashkent. From his point of view, and no doubt Pakistan's, far better not to have a joint declaration than to bring back a weak one.

The glumness should therefore lighten. The gods were favourable to us in Agra and it was Pakistan which basked in the limelight. Never in recent times was the word Kashmir mentioned as much on television or in newspapers in India as during the summit. The joint declaration may have foundered on the need for a mutually acceptable compromise. But for the army of journalists who had gathered in Agra there was little doubt as to what the sticking point--call it core issue or whatever-- had been. How does this not redound to Pakistan's advantage?

Musharraf himself, let's not deny him the credit, was the star attraction of the summit. He obviously got on well with Mr Vajpayee, a circumstance behind the personal chemistry that by all accounts the two leaders developed. He left no one in any doubt that Kashmir topped the Pakistani agenda. And in his breakfast meeting with Indian newspaper editors, by general consent he came across as impressive.

This event, recorded only by PTV, was not meant for immediate telecast. But Prannoy Roy of New Delhi Television (the organization which does news programming for Star News), sensing the opportunity, persuaded Pakistani officials to lend him the only copy of the recording. The result was a media coup for Star News and something which dominated the Agra skyline for the rest of the day.

Liking not a bit of this, the Indian side later came out with heavy hints that when Musharraf started speaking through the media that was the time the Indian government decided to dig in its heels and give him nothing with which to return to Pakistan. But this was disinformation. The talks came to a dead-end for other reasons and not because of Musharraf's straight talking.

How were the talks scuppered? Quite simply because Vajpayee himself and his cabinet hard-liners (led of course by Mr Advani) were operating on different wavelengths. The hard-liners wanted to give nothing on Kashmir and even though Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh twice agreed on the Kashmir clauses of the draft joint declaration, on both occasions he, and his prime minister, were vetoed by the hawks. Which, as it takes little imagination to see, is not the best way of conducting any kind of negotiations. Where in the world during high-level negotiations are the principals subject to constant cross-checking and blocking by more influential figures in the wings? But that's what happened at Agra.

This circumstance alone testifies to one of the inherent flaws in this summit. While Musharraf was master of his show, and in a position to call the shots, Vajpayee, for all his pre-eminence as a leader, found his hands tied by his BJP hard-liners. On screen many Indian presenters kept asking the question: can Musharraf be trusted? In the end, it was the Indian government, especially its Advani hard-liners, which could not be trusted to sustain the momentum generated by this visit.

When the crunch came Vajpayee's poetic vision was helpless before the cold-eyed narrowism of his hard-line colleagues. If he had his eyes on history, Advani probably had his on the provincial elections which are to come in Uttar Pradesh. That's how Agra crumbled.

Pakistan need shed no tears at this outcome. For the first time since Kargil the burden of intransigence and provocation shifts clearly to Indian shoulders.

During the summit's final hours Pakistani newsmen in mobile contact with members of the Pakistan delegation sensed a growing feeling of anger and frustration at India's delaying tactics. Twice, it was said, Jaswant Singh had gone back on his own draft. As rumour flew thick and fast, what had already been an extraordinary summit showed every sign of turning into a screen thriller. To add to the sense of drama came word at this point that General Musharraf wanted to address Pakistani journalists but was being prevented from doing so by the Indian side. The air quickly filled with a hint of raw patriotism but the tension subsided with the news that Musharraf had left for Agra airport.

Was the Pakistani side expecting too much? If so, we were wrong because we were not negotiating from strength. What leverage did we have? Why should India then have obliged us by placing Kashmir at the top of the table? Already India seems to be realizing the mistake it made at Agra by saying that future talks will be conducted in the light of the Simla Agreement and the Lahore Declaration--"the cornerstones," as has explicitly been stated, of "India-Pakistan relations". For a brief moment at Agra the two sides seemed to be groping for something that went slightly beyond the sterile clauses of the past. But the moment proved too short and the effort was abortive.

The two sides have promised to keep on trying and, wisely, have refrained from apportioning blame. Even so, the impression is hard to shed that this was Vajpayee's last hurrah on Kashmir. While the sun went down on Agra there was a glimmer of hope that something slightly off the beaten track might emerge to break the impasse on Kashmir. But the hope died as it became clear that there was not enough of a commitment on the Indian side to take that small step forward which the mood and the occasion demanded.

But why despair? Life goes on and while Musharraf has brought no text back from Agra whose clauses can be cited, he has helped create a process which both countries have an interest in keeping alive. And if this process does not touch Kashmir, let the onus of this be on India's head. If history, the name we give to collective folly, has to play out its course in that unhappy land, so be it. At least from now on the blame directed at us should be less shrill.

Two questions in the end. Should this summit have taken place in Agra? Most certainly, yes. Dry enough as India-Pakistan relations are, they needed some romance brought into them. What is more, in Delhi or any other prosaic setting the talks would have come to a dead-end sooner than in Agra.

Should this have been the media event that it became? Again, yes. The TV coverage was repetitive and mostly unenlightening but to tens of millions of viewers across the subcontinent it provided a glimpse, for the first time, of something utterly new: the promise of peace between two countries which have hitherto excelled at bitterness and conflict. For this alone the Agra summit was worth the effort that went into it.