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I keep seeing you, Musharraf to Shah Rukh

Shah Rukh Khan in New Delhi

It was nice to be invited to this lunch.

I am thankful and I am honoured. I take this event very positively. I have never attended such an event.

The prime minister's lunch was informal and relaxed. I was the first one to light a cigarette, and then many others followed.

My table was named Narmada and I was sharing it with Venkat Raghvan, joint secretary in the Prime Minister's Office, Munnawar Hussain, a historian, Ajit Panja, former Union minister, Hamid Ansari, the vice-chancellor of the Aligarh Muslin University and Munawar Saeed, a diplomat from Pakistan.

I have a home in Peshawar and my relatives live there. My father Mir Taj Mohmmad belonged to Peshawar. It was nice meeting some people from there. I had visited my father's home way back in 1981.

I always feel we are so different!

Our environment, our thinking and our upbringing, they are all so different.

And that's precisely why we have so much to share. I feel that just as people from Greater Kailash are different from the people of Karol Bagh, you can't belie the fact that Indians and Pakistanis are themselves quite different.

We are different. It's an emotional issue.

But if we become friends, then the entire sub-continent will become a great power.

I personally believe we should not consider Pakistan an enemy. It is our upbringing that inculcates such feelings.

But look at Jinnah's daughter. She stayed back in India and now her family is one of the leading families in Mumbai. They are looked after so well.

I feel that only friends fight like this (like the way India and Pakistan are fighting).

And then the whole fight bogs down to who will make the first move to break the ice. Pehle phone karne ki bat hoti hai (It is just a issue of who will phone first).

I feel that the atmosphere inside was touching.

There were some 50 Pakistanis and between 60 and 70 Indians under one roof and that looked to me a good beginning.

Mere jaise anpadh artiste bhi ander the (Even an uneducated artiste like me was present there).

I just wish that the atmosphere inside should spread out in the entire country.

I can't talk much about Kashmir though. I am complete outsider to discuss such serious subjects. I don't want to look silly and I don't want to oversimplify the issue.

I would seriously like to tell the media and the concerned people not to approach the summit with any pre-conceived notion.

Don't ask what happened, we should think about what can be done. That's the way to start.

Mehman se pahli bar main kam ki baat nahin karte (We don't talk business with the guest in the first meeting).

Let them shake hands in next meeting. Let them hug each other and then the friendship would begin.

It's too emotional an issue and it will take time. We should not expect too much. Let's not spoil the move, for once!

In such moments we say Inshallah! Let them begin.

I shook hands with Musharraf. He said, "Aap ko to dekhte rahte hai (We keep seeing you)."

I wished him well. Actually I wanted to meet Mayawati. I could not. I am media shy so I didn't venture.

I also met Atal Bihari Vajpayee. I want to meet him again. I told him that I was also operated on leg thrice. Once on my knee and twice on my ankle. I was operated in February last year in Austria and I am still not fine. Doctors tell me that I need another operation.

I told him that I would like to share some knee exercises with him, which might help him.

But please don't ask me about the food. Mujhe khana samj nahin aata (I don't understand subject of food). I eat very little and I don't know which type of food it was!

(Film actor Shah Rukh Khan was one of the invitees to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's lunch hosted in honour of the visiting Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf. This was a first person account as told to Sheela Bhatt.)

Indo-Pak Summit 2001: The Complete Coverage

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