New Delhi, July 9 :    New Delhi, July 9:  Before the talks, the chatfest. Welcome to a festival of words, of glib, smart, re-phrased one-liners, of words that perform, that speak, shout, squeak, shriek, yell, holler, words that have no line of control. But a chatfest any day, any time, over slugfest. Welcome to the great meeting of minds, spread over two days at the Maurya Sheraton, of intellectuals from India and Pakistan, sponsored by the Indian Council of Social Sciences Research (ICSSR) and patronised by none other than Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. This is M.L. Sondhi, the ICSSR chief's finest hour. One Pakistani scholar actually said he deserved a high civilian honour. Days ago, the Union human resources development ministry, was sceptical of the meet. Sondhi overcame that. He went over Murli Manohar Joshi and reached for Vajpayee's ear. The Prime Minister lent it willingly. Then the home ministry got into the act. Last month, it issued an order and placed visa restrictions on invitations to foreign scholars, particularly those from the Saarc countries, who might be asked to participate in seminars and workshops - chatfests by any other word - on 'sensitive' subjects. Sondhi had Vajpayee's ear again. Today, to an audience of academics, journalists and intellectuals from across both sides of the fence, Sondhi said thanks. The ICSSR under him announced it was instituting 27 Vajpayee-Musharraf Senior Academic Fellowships - 27 for each of the institutes and centres of research under the ICSSR. In the week that is to climax with the summit of the two chief executives, Sondhi has added his mite to the 'atmospherics', euphemism for hype. 'Hype? What's wrong with that?,' argues Hamid Haroon, publisher of the Dawn. 'Hype is not a creation but a reflection. Hype is an affirmation of the aspiration.' But will not hype raise expectations to unrealistic levels? 'People will be partially apprehensive. Nobody wants the talks to fail. But the definition and measurement of success and failure will be different. You say, why insist on Musharraf having tea with the Hurriyat. It will be unrealistic for him not to talk to the Hurriyat. I would rather Musharraf talked to the Hurriyat before Vajpayee than to the Lashkar-e-Toiba.' And then the glib one-liners flow. Here are the top five: Glib one-liner no.1 - 'If we can't have tripartite talks, let's talk tripartite' - Hamid Haroon. No.2 - This (the meeting of social scientists) is a dress rehearsal of thoughts and ideas - Hamid Haroon again No.3 - Conflict is an expensive luxury - Najma Heptullah, who inaugurated the conference. (Vajpayee had advised Sondhi that he should get a woman from the minority community to do the job. Sondhi homed in on Heptullah who was on a trip to China and Japan, got her to drop the Japan leg of her tour and flew her back to Delhi). No.4 - Our establishments have to stop de-demonising each other - Khalid M. Awan, chairing the group meeting on media and communication No.5 - Kashmir is not a problem; it is a solution to the problem of nuclear weapons and the problem of religious fanaticism - R.L.M. Patil, political science department, Bangalore University. For each of the group meetings, rapporteurs took down notes vigorously. They will go into the making of the report and the recommendations will be forwarded to Vajpayee.