Khokhar Charisma

Never was an ambassador so hated and so feted at the same time. While the cocktail classes may be a little hazy about the activities of Our Man in Islamabad, they are in no doubt about the achievements of Their Man in New Delhi. "Six parties a night," he once confessed to an Indian editor.

Perhaps it is the combination of Frontier machismo and urbane courtliness that is the secret of Riaz Khokhar's social success. Or perhaps it is his unflinching denunciation of India coupled with a People-Like-Us accent that draws the denizens of drawing rooms towards the first representative of the Islamic republic. "I know some people," says Dileep Padgaonkar, former editor of The Times Of India , "who consider it a status issue to have Khokhar at a party. After all, a whisky on the rocks with the Pakistani ambassador has a deliciously un-Islamic appeal.

Never mind if relations between India and Pakistan seem to have reached an all-time low. Never mind if after competitive closures of consulates first in Bombay, then in Karachi, diplomatic relations have dwindled to a level where it is becoming almost impossible to receive unopened mail from across the Line of Actual Control. Never mind if Khokhar's tenure has been, as Padgaonkar describes it, a public relations success but a substantive failure. None of this is remotely the point. Because the fact is that as far as Riaz Khokhar is concerned, the more he abuses us, the more we love him.

The Ladies-Who-Lunch of Delhi are very approving of the Khokhar couple. Kamna Prasad, resident of Amrita Shergil Marg, says she cannot imagine any Indian ambassador being so effective. "He knows very clearly what his brief is and is carrying it out to the best of his abilities. He and his wife are both great hosts. Begum Khokhar is, in fact, a very well-read woman and they are a charming couple." The state of Indo-Pakistani relations hardly ever enters into Prasad's conversations with the Khokhars. "When we are together we talk of Ghalib and Mir, Amir Khusro and Sufi poetry." Of course, Prasad also admits that "Khokhar knows what he is doing".

He certainly does. After all, in the pursuit of diplomacy, eating and drinking for the country is not just an art but an act of state policy. A.R. Deo, former Indian ambassador to Nepal, says there is nothing like offering a meal to feed bilateral dialogue. Mutual respect for culinary skills at least keeps the interaction alive, if not well. Deo, however, feels Khokhar has been a little too controversial.

Controversial or not, Khokhar remains a fascinating psychological study. Fraternal over cocktails but adversarial over the main course. Bitterly critical of Indian policy, but close friends with the policy-makers. A senior journalist explains the Khokhar phenomenon: "The thing to remember is that he is the first post-Partition ambassador. So he has none of the nostalgia or the fond feelings that his predecessors had. He is programmed to dislike us. He actually hates India but when he finds people responding rather warmly to him, he can't help feeling a little confused. And this makes him hostile.

An outwardly-friendly Pakistani, however embittered within, is uniquely pleasing to the north Indian. Probably because Pakistan, or West Punjab, is still considered the home of authentic Punjabi culture, whether carried aloft by Farida Khanum or Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. "The Pakistanis know this," says the senior journalist, "and they use it to their advantage.

Yet Khokhar himself is modest about his achievements. "I think I have been a bit of a disaster," he says, "and I feel sorry that the press has given me such a larger-than-life image. As far as I'm concerned, I'm only doing my job." But the Sadr-i-Pakistan's first servant in India says he is running out of shirts. After spending more than a decade in the subcontinent, he finds himself restricted increasingly to wearing salwar kameezes. "It's only when we get out of this place," he says, "that we can get ourselves some decent shirts."