Mariana Baabar in Islamabad

The guy who once wrote 'Stone walls do not a prison make/Nor iron bars a cage' would have found a kindred spirit in Mushahid Hussain.

"They can deprive you of your physical freedom," he points out. "But no one can keep your soul captive."

Listen to those words well -- they come from an expert. And Hussain's is a hard-won expertise -- Mushahid Hussain, former information minister in the Nawaz Sharif cabinet, has just spent 440 days in solitary confinement.

It all ended as suddenly as it began -- on Monday evening, an officer attached to the Triple One Brigade appeared at Hussain's cell door with the news that his captivity was over.

"I really have no idea why I have been released," says a bemused Hussain. "But then, I had no idea why I was detained either!"

Welcome to the world of military dictatorships -- where a cell door can slam shut on you, and open just as mysteriously, with no explanation, no reason, no rationale.

It is not just the prisoner who is left clueless -- a state of befuddlement permeates his guards as well. Thus, the few dozen soldiers who kept vigil during Hussain's incarceration wore sheepish looks as they packed their belongings into trucks, at the end of their assignment.

A young officer came up to Hussain, insisting that he check his room, inspect his belongings, certify that nothing was missing. The officers treated him with embarrassment. Hussain reciprocated with courtesy. "Best of luck to you in the future and keep up the good work," Hussain told the officer, as they took leave. "After all, you are a pasban (protector)."

The sudden-ness of the release raises eyebrows in political circles, and fuels much speculation that it was part of a package deal that, earlier this month, saw Nawaz Sharif leave for exile in Saudi Arabia.

Hussain reacts to the speculation with astonishment. "There has been no deal whatsoever," he avers, in an interview. "My family moved the Lahore high court, the court held five sessions, and the State failed to bring a single charge against me in any of them. Even the National Accountability Bureau could not find any charges."

Sharif's own exile is, from Hussain's point of view, a good thing. There was too much vindictiveness in the past," he points out. "We have seen political leaders jailed, or hanged. This is a departure from that past, and must be welcomed."

But it is the theme of imprisonment that finds Hussain at his most eloquent. "It is up to you whether you bow down before such things," the former minister says. "During my imprisonment, the only reading material I was allowed was the holy Quran. And that taught me the lesson, that I only had to bow before Allah, and no one else."

Captivity, in the ultimate analysis, is what you make of it. "I maintained a diary, throughout those 440 days," says Hussain. "And now I have enough material to write two books."

That Hussain is a noted writer is well known. That the prospect of two books in the offing raises blood pressures in some circles, is equally obvious -- after all, Hussain has been party to two Muslim League governments in the past, and if he writes one tell-all book let alone two, the cat could well be among the pigeons.

For now, Hussain is content to soft-peddle. "I don't know too much, really," he says, of his two previous tenures in the Sharif cabinet. "There were two areas I was never privy to -- our dealings with the army, and the United States."

There is, for now, a deliberately low key air to Hussain. Even as we talk, he handles with impeccable politeness the calls that pour in from around the world, congratulating him on his release. And in between, speaks of what he sees as his immediate agenda. "My task will be to build bridges between the different groups in the Muslim League," he says. "I belong to no one group, I prefer to work for the party's unity, to making the League Pakistan's most popular party once again."

He has set himself quite a task. The military regime has no use for him, the Muslim League considers himself an outsider. Turning that perception round will take some doing.

But then, Hussain has a powerful weapon at his command -- the pen. "For now, I will resume my weekly columns in the English media," he says.

And that is all he says.

Left unstated, however, is the obvious -- that his gift with words, and his contacts worldwide, combine to ensure that there will always be some role for him on Pakistan's political stage.

Photograph: Tanveer Shahzad

The Rediff Specials

Tell us what you think of this feature