THERE may be many Delhis that historians or other specialists would know of but as I make the Lahore-Delhi run for the second time in less than a month there are two I am getting familiar with.
One is the happening city, a fizz in its air, which leaves many Pakistanis a bit green with envy. Why can't their cities be like this? The other is Fortress Delhi, a holdover from the cold war, where the old shibboleths still cast their spell.
In so many areas India is fast moving ahead. It does not take long for a visitor from Pakistan to notice the difference between the cosmopolitanism of Delhi and the provincialism of even our larger cities. Lahore, once the pride of this part of the world, now has the mindset (psychology, system of values) that would fit a village.
Who were the two choices for Lahore district head or nazim in the just-concluded local election? Hafiz Salman Butt and Mian Aamir Mahmood, both of whom would not look out of place in a movie about toughs and underworld heavies.
Between the MQM and a succession of weak and bungling provincial overlords we have tried our best to pull down Karachi. If it still retains aspects of its commercial glory, it is no thanks to its godfathers but purely because of its own resilience.
Islamabad is neither here nor there, its pretensions and pomposity being a heavy burden on the land.
So Delhi then is cosmopolitan. More happens here on a crowded evening than in Islamabad for an entire year. All the more astonishing then that Fortress Delhi, the counterpoint to all this openness, still retains the flavour of the Berlin Wall.
In this Fortress there is no window more tightly shuttered against the elements than the one which opens on Pakistan. Miss Haversham's world with its cobwebs and a clock which has forgotten to tick. Behind the barred window this is the room from where time has been evacuated.
Media people in India are easy to deal with. Finding a common wavelength with them is not difficult. When they indulge in self-criticism a Pakistani is encouraged to admit to the reigning follies on his side of the divide.
A genuine conversation starts in which the participants talk to each other instead of at each other which has been the standard procedure in Indo-Pak face-offs.
Sure, the media world has its fiery priests but in the English language part of it such fundamentalists are few in number - those who think diplomacy best functions when only one side, that sitting across the table, makes the concessions. The majority do not belong to this narrow church. If they did, Pakistani wordsmiths would not have been allowed to have their say on Indian TV.
But the kitchen in Fortress Delhi is not in the hands of any doubting Thomases; people inclined to question established verities. It is in the firm control of a breed vanishing elsewhere but alive and well in this part of the world: cold warriors to the last man and fighting woman. To see them in play or action is a humbling experience. It is enough to turn the most peaceable dove into a wild-eyed hawk.
For these clerics of the rigid line the memory of Agra rankles. Not so much for what it failed to achieve but for what it gave the Pakistanis: a credible media victory on Indian soil. General Musharraf's performance at his famous breakfast meeting with Indian editors has not been forgiven. It continues to be painted in various colours of treachery and betrayal as if the televizing of it by Star News was a dark plot on the part of the spin doctors who formed part of the Pakistani delegation.
But wherein lay the mischief? Not in the act of televizing but in the fact that Musharraf came out of it looking articulate and masterful. It is this success which rankles and this which has not been forgiven. If Musharraf had been savaged by the editors, had he been mopping his brow under their questioning or come out of the encounter bruised and bleeding, and if the whole thing had then been shown on television, Musharraf would have been commiserated with and given lectures on the values of a free society.
Since it turned out otherwise, the cold warriors who act as pilots on Kashmir and Pakistan are finding it difficult to keep their indignation in check. In an encounter in which the Pakistani side appeared lighter-footed than its Indian counterpart their one consolation has come in the form of the summit's eventual failure. If a joint declaration incorporating the Pakistani position on Kashmir had been signed their world would have crumbled.
It is important to get the context of the summit right. The invitation to General Musharraf was offered from a height, as an act of condescension from an India basking in the warm glow of its perceived superiority. It was not part of the script that someone not long ago reviled as a dictator and mastermind of "cross-border terrorism" should in any way turn the tables on his hosts. But when this is what started happening, the discomfort on the Indian side became palpable.
What had been showcased as a symbol of Indian reasonableness - the invitation to Musharraf - was turning into a public relations nightmare. It was not the televizing of the breakfast meeting which thwarted the signing of a declaration but the gathering Indian realization that Pakistan was getting away with too much.
This is not to say that masters of trench warfare exist only on the Indian side. They have their happy counterparts in Pakistan as well, liberators of Kashmir who would willingly fight to the last Kashmiri.
The generals and diplomats of this hard school are interchangeable. Their briefs may be different but the attitude which informs them is to a striking degree the same. Between them there will be no solution of the Kashmir problem. Not now and not in the next fifty years.
But it's amazing how some people in Pakistan fall prey to the most absurd illusions. There are no Kashmir solutions being studied in Fortress Delhi. Academics and other people on the fringes of power may occasionally toy with different theories.
But they don't matter. The keys to the drawbridge are not in their hands. Those who have the keys operate from fixed positions, none of which allows any flexibility on Kashmir or nothing that even remotely calls into question the sacrosanctity of existing frontiers. The subcontinent is a cruel place for such luxuries as the flowering of hope.
But is there any alternative to talking? At the risk of appearing to wear my patriotism on my sleeve, I think Pakistan has handled matters with India in a mature manner since Agra. For instance, it has mercifully chosen not to respond to MrVajpayee's uncharacteristic outburst against Gen Musharraf for knowing neither history nor the rules of international diplomacy. India has been embarrassed by these remarks and not Pakistan. To have shown umbrage at them would have been a lapse of judgment.
Agra was a good thing because it played before a wide audience. Far from being blamed for this outcome, the media deserves praise for lending excitement to what otherwise would have been a bleak and sterile affair.
People in both countries haven't suffered for being made aware of each other's viewpoint.
In the long line of Indo-Pak summits which stick in the mind? To some extent Tashkent. Certainly Simla. The rest are a blur. Agra will be remembered for the excitement it brought even though, unlike Tashkent and Simla, the firing of no guns preceded it. For a change India and Pakistan should learn to get excited about peace if at all they are to move out of their loveless embrace.
I have written the above lines in New Delhi. In Pakistan I probably would not have written on this subject because I know that most people are sick and tired of Agra. They are also aware that going on and on about the General's performance there can only be calculated to inflate his head and lead to further extensions in his presidential term. But I was invited to Delhi for a panel discussion on the Agra breakfast meeting - the ethics of it and so on - and have put down the impressions that I gathered after listening to some eminent cold warriors.