IN CHARGE: Pavan K. Varma with wife Renuka

Is there a Pakistani culture?

Pavan K. Varma agrees. What the Pakistani government needs in London is something like the Nehru Centre of which Pavan has been director for two years.

Unfortunately and unfairly, the only word that goes with “Pakistani” these days in London is “terrorist”. But when the dust settles from the present crisis caused by the terror attacks on London ? and it will settle ? Pakistan’s reputation will still remain besmirched.

What are the kind of stories we get linked with Pakistan? Either cricketer Javed Miandad’s son is marrying the daughter of Dawood Ibrahim, a terrorist wanted by both India and the United States; or President Musharraf is being pressed to tackle al Qaida and other militant groups in his country; or British Pakistanis are turning into suicide bombers.

More than ever, Pakistan needs, say, a Jinnah Centre to project the positive aspects of Pakistani culture.

But this raises the fundamental question: what is “Pakistani” culture?

Pavan, who is packing up in London and returning to New Delhi at the end of August to head the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) ? he will be replaced as Nehru Centre director by Dr Atul Khare, a foreign service officer (there were rumours that Shabana Azmi wanted the job) ? says it is much easier to define “Indian culture”.

It is an easily recognisable “brand name”, which can be deployed indirectly to promote India’s foreign policy. The Nehru Centre is part of the high commission of India and its director has diplomatic status with the rank of minister. As for Pakistani culture, “that is subsumed within Indian culture”, he adds.

At the Nehru Centre, Pavan says he has found it easy to be pretty eclectic, putting on “everything from fashion to films, from theatre to dance”. He has refurbished the auditorium, the art gallery and the conference room. “The centre is booked months ahead,” he says proudly.

He and his wife, Renuka, live in one of the apartments above the Nehru Centre in South Audley Street, Mayfair. He is thrilled to have acquired a UK literary agent and a publisher, Random House, for his book, Being Indian.

“There is hardly an evening when we are not entertaining,” he remarks. “Our home has become almost a salon. In many ways London is probably the cultural capital of the world.”

This makes it even more important for Pakistan to define the reason for its existence nearly six decades after the creation of the country as a haven for Muslims ? a word, sadly, with negative connotations in England. An estimated 800,000 Pakistanis and their children have made Britain their home. Quite a few are now openly wondering whether they have a future in Britain.

The crisis will pass. Meanwhile, Indians who frequent the Nehru Centre would be more than happy to share the space with fellow Pakistani artists.

SUNNY DAYS: Sunil Gavaskar

Pavilion prose

Sunil Gavaskar was being unduly modest, I think, when he told me he had more time to read big fat books when he was playing cricket.

“I used to carry books with me all the time,” he revealed. “Whenever I got out cheaply I would read them.”

I don’t remember him getting out cheaply all that often. During his debut tour of the West Indies, The Times reported his exploits (one double century and three centuries) with a weary: “Another Gavaskar century.”

The subject of books came up because Sunil went with his wife, son Rohan and other family members to see The Far Pavilions last week ? “it was a great experience to see what life must have been like in those days”. But he has not yet read M.M. Kaye’s blockbuster novel.

“It’s very thick,” he said.

He laughed when I reminded him that I had been witness to his historic 221 in 1979.

“That was a lifetime ago,” he observed.

The Test was at the Oval in south London (a short drive from my home). The ground is served by Oval Underground station, which was sealed by police last week after one of the bombers chose this venue for an attack. On a match day, many cricket lovers would have been killed. Luckily, the bomb didn’t explode.

ALL FOR A SIP: Bradman (seated) during the drinks break at Headingley, 1938

Taste buds

“They are batting for lunch?,” the commentator would say.

When I was a little boy, this made me wonder what cricketers had for lunch. Now, Waitrose Food Illustrated, the monthly magazine published by the Waitrose supermarket chain, has written about the meals that Australians, including Bradman, could expect on their 1938 tour of England. During Tests, squash was taken out on silver trays “by two waitresses, complete with starch aprons and lacy headscarves, and a waiter, resplendent in a white jacket and dickie bow”.

What is fascinating is the historical detail in the article, The way we ate: At the Cricket. At Lords, right up until the 1970s, the dining room manager, a formidable Irish woman called Nancy Doyle, ensured the players got home-made soup, followed by “a full roast meal and a hot pudding” ? “all this within 40 minutes”.

Players had to change into their blazers before going into the dining room.

These days the food is a lot healthier but the age of elegance has gone. The tastiest food, though, is served by the Indian millionaires in their corporate boxes. There is plenty of hospitality for Indian players. However, I am not entirely convinced that batting on biryani in the post luncheon session is such a good idea.

Sound and fury

The one person who is really surprised by the attacks on Manmohan Singh for his allegedly pro-British speech in Oxford is ? me.

Having sat through the speech in its entirety on a hard bench in Convocation House, I must say I cringed just a little at what I thought was an unnecessarily critical note. What he said can be summed up as follows: we are friends today with the Brits even though they were once pretty nasty to us.

At a ceremony where he was being given an honorary degree, it seemed a trifle ungracious for him to say: “There is no doubt that our grievances against the British empire had a sound basis.”

If anything, the speech could be criticised for not being friendly enough. It’s time some people in India stopped carrying a chip on their shoulder.

DANGEROUS LIAISON: Kimberly Fortier

Tittle tattle

The Far Pavilions is not the only show in town. Who’s the Daddy?, a comedy, is providing a little light relief. It is set around the events of last summer at The Spectator magazine whose American publisher, Kimberly Fortier, was sleeping with David Blunkett, then home secretary. Meanwhile, the editor, Boris Johnson, had made one of his staff pregnant, while an assistant editor was having an affair with the office secretary. It is all pretty much based on fact.

Art it isn’t, coarse it is, but the play, a fringe affair being staged on a pub stage, is drawing the chatterati. Meanwhile, I understand from my sources that Waterman’s, the West London venue which specialises in highbrow Indian culture, would quite like to put on a two-hander based on the alleged conversation between Ash and Salman.