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The Rediff Special/Kanchan Gupta

Atal, Chandrika & Chama Rajendra

It has been raining intermittently in Colombo and the surf is high in the Indian Ocean. The Sri Lankans, who had planned an elaborate welcome for the heads of state arriving in Colombo on Tuesday for the 10th SAARC summit, were apprehensive that rains would mar the show. As Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's aircraft, an IAF Boeing, approached the airport, a sharp shower broke out, leaving the Sri Lankan cultural affairs minister, who had been deputed to receive the dignitaries, fretting.

But by the time the plane landed, it was dry once again and the red carpet was rolled out for Vajpayee. Chama Rajendra, the seven-month-old baby elephant from Mysore who has been brought to Colombo as a gift for Sri Lankan President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, stood alongside the smartly attired guard of honour. Ceremonies over, Vajpayee hopped into a helicopter and was flown to the Hotel Taj Samudra, facing the majestic Indian Ocean, where the heads of state are staying.

The entire fifth floor of the Taj Samudra has been reserved for Vajpayee and his entourage. The grapevine has it that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief and his team have been given rooms on the third floor. "Two notches lower than our prime minister," a journalist quipped in mock humour.

***

Later in the evening Vajpayee called on Kumaratunga at her residence, Temple Trees, and presented her with a mahout's hook made of silver as a symbol of his gift to her -- Chama Rajendra, who stood in the courtyard with a rather lost look on his face. In an attempt to cheer him up, Vajpayee and Kumaratunga offered freshly cut sugarcane to Rajendra, but he shook his ears and looked away. "Let's leave him alone," whispered Kumaratunga. Vajpayee nodded agreement and the two skipped away for talks that lasted 45 minutes.

***

If security was tight on Monday, it was awesome on Tuesday. The Galle Front, where the Taj Samudra is located, has been delinked from the rest of the world. All along Galle Road and other roads leading up to the Galle Front, road blocks and check points have been set up, manned by mean-faced young men in fatigues, armed with rapid fire weapons. They don't speak -- they merely hold up a sign that reads "STOP" and you stop. More often than not, having been stopped, you are made to turn around and get back to where you came from.

If you are lucky enough to be allowed to go through, and for Indian mediapersons the destination is the Intercontinental where the SAARC media centre has been set up, what follows is thorough frisking every few yards. But they do it in style -- the men on frisking duty wear spotless white gloves and, some mediapersons have alleged, one of them throws in a grope for good measure.

What is striking is that almost to the last man the soldiers on security duty look as if they are in their late teens. This is not surprising given the depletion rate of the Sri Lankan forces caught in a vicious civil war with the Tigers.

Interestingly, a new survey shows that 65 per cent of the Tigers are aged under 18, the bulk of them aged between 10 and 16. The bloody war is fast becoming a battle fought by teenaged children armed with guns.

***

The Sri Lanka government does not appear to have spared any effort in mounting what local newspapers have described as "one of the tightest ever security operations" to ensure that the SAARC summit passes off peacefully. Galle Road, along which are situated Temple Trees (the president's house), Hotel Lanka Oberoi (where the Indian media delegation is staying), the Indian high commission and the Taj Samudra (where the official delegates are staying), wears a deserted look.

Traffic has been diverted and the few cars and auto-rickshaws that have been allowed access are stopped every few yards by armed men in uniform. One estimate has it that more than 6,000 policemen and security forces personnel have been deployed in and around Galle Road. The Taj Samudra has been cordoned off by officers from the armed forces and the elite police Special Task Force. Indeed, so tight is the security at the Taj Samudra that even accredited mediapersons are not allowed access to the delegates.

***

Some Indian journalists who were eagerly looking forward to meeting Mushahid Hussein, information minister in Mian Nawaz Sharief's government and former editor of The Muslim, are disheartened -- he is not accompanying the Pakistani prime minister. It seems these Indian journalists depend on Mushahid Hussein for "input" on the Pakistani perspective -- and what Mushahid says is a sophisticated version of Gohar Ayub Khan's anti-India diatribe.

The hearts of the 'I Love Mushahid' gang lifted when told that a lookalike was spotted at Colombo airport. Their hearts did a collective nosedive when it was confirmed that the man was a flunkey from the Pakistani high commission, waiting for Nawaz Sharief's plane to land.

***

Compared to the Pakistani officials at the summit, the Indian officials have carried themselves with greater dignity, making the extra effort not to dampen the spirit of SAARC. Battered by uncomfortable questions on Pakistani belligerence, they resolutely kept on repeating the Indian position revolving around regional co-operation. The Pakistanis, on the other hand, have been doing their damnedest to sour the spirit of SAARC by harping on Kashmir and playing their old theme song.

Needless to add, while the use of proper and pucca diplomatese by the Indian officials may have left mediapersons, especially those representing foreign agencies and newspapers, fretting and fuming, on the whole India has put up a better face than Pakistan's dour frown.

***

One wishes, though, that Indian diplomats were more imaginative and equally sophisticated when it comes to entertainment. Dinner served at the Indian high commissioner's reception on Monday night at Hotel Mount Lavinia, which abuts on the Indian Ocean and offers a gorgeous view of splendorous surf, was straight out of standard, greasy Delhi menu. There was chicken tikka, paneer saag, mutton curry. And, of course, underdone naans and tandoori parathas. Pity that one did not tank up at the Sri Lankan foreign minister's reception earlier in the evening where, among other Sinhala delicacies, they served golden fried prawns dusted with sesame seeds.

***

The anti-privatisation lobby in Sri Lanka has hit upon a novel means of protest. Angered by the government's move to privatise Sri Lanka Telecom, computer hackers used Sri Lankan Telecom Minister Mangala Samaraweera's credit card to surf gay porn sites on the Internet, running up a bill of $ 2,000.

The billing details show that the hackers accessed these porn sites 32 times and took care to erase the login names to cover their tracks. With costs being billed to the minister's official credit card, he finds himself framed in a scandal that has left many people in Colombo giggling in their sleeves. The minister had earlier been charged with using his official credit card to pay for personal items.

The Rediff Specials

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