Under Saddam146;s gaze

Summer 2002: I am a bit late in reaching the Iraqi Embassy, located in New Delhi8217;s Vasant Vihar. As I enter, the ever-cautious staff ru...

Summer 2002: I am a bit late in reaching the Iraqi Embassy, located in New Delhi8217;s Vasant Vihar. As I enter, the ever-cautious staff run a suspicious look over me, as if to ascertain whether I had the remotest link to the CIA. 8216;8216;I have an appointment with the ambassador, H.E. Salah Al-Mukhtar,8217;8217; I tell the man at the reception. 8216;8216;But you8217;re late,8217;8217; he retorts.

I duly apologise and am introduced to another staffer, who accompanies me to the ambassador8217;s office. I reach a room ornamented with the customary picture of Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi flag. I apologise again for being late. The man on the chair listens to everything I say but rarely answers. As I am about to begin my interview, he asks the man accompanying me to take me to the ambassador. 8216;8216;Oh, you8217;re not the ambassador!8217;8217; I blurt out. He turns out to be the first secretary.

Finally, I reach the man I8217;m supposed to be interviewing. His warmth puts me at ease. Before long, he is spitting fire at the United States. I try to cool the charged atmosphere a bit and talk about India and Iraq.

Says the ambassador in response,8216;8216;Both India and Iraq are like a garden of flowers of different varieties. Just as you have people of different colours and races here, we too have the Kurds, Shias and Arabs.8217;8217; He adds, as an afterthought, 8216;8216;Oh, even the biryani is so similar. We put a lot of vegetables into it.8217;8217;

The Saddam Hussein portrait stares at us. Talk now shifts to sanctions and their fallout on Iraqi children. We come back to India and the Bhagvad Gita. I am intrigued by the fact that he was translating it at that time. But the ambassador points to other commonalities. 8216;8216;Both Baghdad and Delhi are connected by history. The basin between Tigris and Euphrates is the cradle of human civilisation. India has a 5,000-year-old civilisation. It has given Gandhi to the world. He8217;s our ideal.8217;8217;

So why isn8217;t Iraq following Gandhi8217;s policy of non-violence? 8216;8216;We believe if someone attacks us, we have every right to defend ourselves.8217;8217; A UN role is still possible, I suggest.8216;8216;The UN should restrain the US instead,8217;8217; says the ambassador, somewhat ruefully.

The clock shows I have exceeded the stipulated time. I carry on. With the afternoon sun peering from the window, I get a taste of Iraqi hospitality. 8216;8216;India has to step in somewhere. We genuinely believe it has a role to play in this imbroglio. It can mediate between the two countries. On our part we can do our bit in bringing Arab opinion in your favour on Kashmir.8217;8217;

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My tape recorder, with its 90-minute cassette in it, switches off. Peering over his glasses, the envoy observes that the media has been biased in its Iraq reporting. I close my notepad. As a parting shot he invites me for a detailed chat later. I readily agree.

Today, as I listen to John Simpson8217;s voice on BBC, every detail of that conversation comes back to me.