The Spy Chronicles -Book Recco by RK

The year was 2018, last week of May, when I went to Dallas on a business visit.I was to fly by Emirates from Hyderabad to Dubai & catch the connecting flight to Dallas, US.

 At the Hyderabad airport( which I must tell you is one of the best airports in India) I picked up a book called the Spy chronicles- RAW& ISI and the illusions of peace.This book was in the news because it was a unique collaboration between two very unlikely persons AS Dulat (the retired head of  RAW in India) & Asad Durrani ( retired head of ISI,Pakistan) brought together by an Indian journalist Aditya Sinha who arranged for them to  meet in Istanbul, Bankgok & Kathmandu to discuss the various issues between the countries and their views.

 On reaching Dubai , I changed flights, managed to get the front seats with some leg space and was looking forward to a long flight to Dallas dozing of with the book.As the flight took off ,I realized there was an elderly gentleman with his wife in the seats next to me and they were conversing in Urdu. I ignored it and kept to myself trying to settle in, and logged on to the free internet provided on the flight.  Less then an hour into the flight, my neighbor asked me if I could help him to connect to the internet, which I did.  He then introduced himself and told me that he was a senior employee of the PIA ( Pakistan International Airlines) and was stationed in Kuwait for a long time .He was now retired , and  heading to Dallas where his son was working in an IT company and was also a green card holder.

 I introduced my self too, and told him I was on a business visit to Dallas , without of course revealing much about myself. He went to to talk about Karachi, his home town and how  much it was modernized and talked of various amenities like radio taxis etc… very much comparable to what was available in Bombay.

 Of course the talk moved on to the common food and culture . It was a genial conversation  . I quietly pushed the book I was carrying to the side of my seat, not wanting to bring up the subject  neither wanting to read it or get in a discussion about it since it contained topics like Hafiz Saeed/ 26-11,Kulbushan Jadhav & Surgical strikes and may have led to unpleasantness.

 As the flight landed in Dallas , we said our good byes and parted.

Do read  it .Makes it interesting as you can hear the spymasters views.

P.S one of the readers of my blog commented that this would be a great plot for a novel, if it turned out that my travelling companial happened to be Durrani himself.