After a lifetime spent watching the oafishness and stupidity characterising Pakistan-India relations it will take more than routine cliches to convince doubting Thomases that our two countries are capable of conducting their relationship on an intelligent basis.

Wisdom is hoping for too much because the evidence of the last 55 years is enough to show that anything like wisdom is not a subcontinental quality.

We wax lyrical about our long history, about the subcontinent being one of the cradles of civilization. But for all the good sense we have inherited we could be two juvenile countries struggling to cope with the demands of adulthood.

Gandhi and Jinnah, and to a lesser extent Nehru, were giants compared to the pygmies who followed them. But even those giants failed to bridge the Hindu-Muslim divide. As a result the subcontinent - with no little help from Mountbatten, it is true - was torn apart in 1947 in a torrent of blood. If the giants failed, what hope for the Advanis and Musharrafs?

The poet in Vajpayee has at times struggled to the surface. That's when we've seen the glimmer of movement in a dead relationship. But as often the poet has had to be sacrificed to the politician. For all his attempts to soar, Vajpayee is also capable of fast changes of colour, being different things to different audiences.

He is also in the twilight of his years with the stretching battalions of the BJP and its various Hindutva godheads, the RSS and the Sangh Parivar, looming in the background. These have a vested interest in stoking the fires of bigotry.

In the established democracies, in whose number India likes to count itself, being politically narrow-minded or holding to extreme positions is counted as an embarrassment. Even if strongly held, such views are not flaunted. It's a telling sign of the decline of Indian politics that the ruling BJP wears its extreme religious philosophy as a proud badge of honour.

To their credit, thinking Indians are appalled by this state of affairs. Read Sardar Khushwant Singh's latest book, an indictment of the extremist outlook, to get an idea of how they feel. All the same, the strain of intolerance in Indian politics is on the march, the carnage in Gujarat being the most vivid representation of this trend.

Which is not to say it's all good sense and roses on the western front. There are powerful lobbies in Pakistan (need one name them?) with a vested interest in preserving the frontiers of confrontation and intransigence. As long as they call the shots the chances of bringing an imaginative outlook to bear on the vexed question of India-Pakistan relations will remain bleak.

A word about the professional diplomatists. The Foreign Office in Pakistan is the pits, no breeze at all fresh wafting through its corridors since its inception. In what bizarre chamber of the mind did its gurus imbibe their foreign policy ideas? This is a mystery whose code has yet to be cracked.

The Indian ministry of external affairs is no better. I have known some of India's finest sent to man the diplomatic front trenches in Islamabad. With few exceptions, minds more closed and with more fixed ideas would be hard to encounter. Some of the Indian ambassadors who have been here make the sharpest ideologues of the BJP look mild by comparison.

In fact, Pakistani and Indian diplomats are inter-changeable. Send ours to New Delhi and import theirs into our Foreign Office and there'd be no difference in attitude. Any initiative entrusted to these professionals is doomed to failure.

But to proceed with our story, who are Jinnah's descendants, those in command of his legacy? Generals convinced of their divine right to rule. In whose hands has the legacy of Gandhi and Nehru fallen? In those of the ideological rabble storming the bastions of power and seeking to undo what remains of Indian secularism.

But, since we must live in the real world and make do with what we have, it is on these elements, the men in charge, on whose shoulders falls the responsibility of bringing some sanity into a fraught and embittered relationship.

The last three and a half years - that is, since the Musharraf takeover - have been amongst the most barren and fruitless in our history. Firstly because of Kargil and the mistrust it engendered. Then because of the hash both sides made of the Agra summit, an opportunity sacrificed not so much because the ground leading to the summit hadn't been well prepared but because when the crunch came, neither side could rise above its ingrained prejudices.

The problem between our two countries has never been the lack of adequate homework, a line usually taken to explain why nothing came of the Lahore Declaration and later the Agra summit. In fact left to the experts, it is the very thoroughness of their homework, leading inevitably to the restating of old and tired positions, which has always stymied the quest to untangle the past and move ahead. Lack of vision and not lack of homework has been our problem.

So what's the outlook to look forward to after Vajpayee's offer of talks and the telephone conversation he has had with his Pakistani counterpart, Jamali? Dramatic expectations will be unrealistic and will only lead to a sense of disappointment. If both countries can reverse the post-Agra slide and restore things as they stood before, that will be progress enough for the present.

Kashmir, the first item on our list of concerns, must be discussed as must Indian concerns about cross-border intrusions. But first the restoration of road, rail and air links, exchanging ambassadors, and bringing our embassies up to full strength. Some of the sullenness filling the atmosphere must be dissipated, something which will be greatly helped if we can avoid or limit the shrill propaganda to which we are so prone.

We shout at each other all the time. Ask an Englishman how the most devastating things can be said, and the finest insults proffered, without having to raise your voice. Our music and dance are amongst the most intricate and delicate in the world. But our politics and the conduct of our diplomacy remain untouched by this sophistication.

Consider the recent statements coming from both sides about their nuclear prowess. Such boasting and irresponsible talk would make anyone blush. But not us with whom it appears to be standard currency.

The arid wastes of our diplomacy make a strong case for encouraging and promoting our classical music. Its soft tones should help soothe the subcontinent's jangled nerves.

Another thing: shouldn't our two countries be able to talk to each other without outsiders having to tell them what is good for them? Every time a hot wind blows across our border an American official has to come to help bring the temperature down. This is downright insulting for two nations that think no end of themselves.

Pakistan doesn't want to conquer India. Not anymore. Those days are long gone when "Crush India" was a popular slogan in Lahore. Ask Pakistanis whether they are willing to give up their long-standing position on Kashmir and it's a fair bet that nine out of ten will say no. At the same time, however, the realization has grown that there is no military solution to this problem and that it is not in Pakistan's capability to wrest Kashmir by force.

But just as Pakistan has come a long way down the path of realism, India has to stop pretending that it doesn't face a problem in Kashmir. The thing to remember is that we have exploited the situation in Kashmir. India gives us too much credit if it sticks to the belief that we manufactured or invented it.

India should have tried ending the alienation of the Kashmiri people after the '71 war. For 17 years it did nothing of the kind and so had to face an armed uprising in 1989. This was not "cross-border terrorism" but a genuine fight for freedom. Anyway, times have changed and thanks to our American friends the lines between terrorism and liberation struggles have become blurred. We in Pakistan can't afford to ignore this reality. But this is another debate. For the present it is enough if India and Pakistan can talk to each other without others having to tell them what is in their best interests.