But for the dynamics of India-Pakistan relations, the title of Mohammad Hanif's book ‘A Case of Exploding Mangoes' would have been a good way to describe Interior Minister Rehman Malik's parting gift to the Indians who visited Pakistan last week for the Foreign Secretary-level talks and the third SAARC conference of Home/Interior Ministers.
Two case-loads of mangoes were packed for each member of the delegation with each wooden case bursting at the edges with the ‘chausa' variety of the sub-continent's king among fruits.
Considerable effort was also made by the Interior Ministry to ensure that the mangoes — easily weighing more than 20 kg — got to every Indian who came to participate or cover the two meetings. Since the visitors had been given only seven days' visa, the Ministry approached the Indian High Commission on the penultimate day for help in distributing the mangoes, only to learn that most Indians had either left or moved out of Islamabad.
As the High Commission had no means of ferrying the mangoes to India before Wednesday — the next flight out of Pakistan to India — it was decided that the Pakistanis would ferry them by road till Wagah on this side of the border with India in Amritsar where it would be handed over to the Border Security Force (BSF) to be taken to Delhi.
In Delhi, they were housed in a BSF facility from where the Pakistan-returned Indians were requested by the Pakistan High Commission to collect the cases. Though many a mango did not survive the journey through the scorching heat of the Punjab plains, the gesture was evidently not lost on the recipients of Mr. Malik's mango diplomacy, that is usually an indulgence reserved for heads of state and government.
