New Delhi, Dec. 3: In this season of the six-pack abs, here’s a take on Pakistan’s politics:

How do you know that Musharraf has got what Shah Rukh is showing off to everybody and his uncle?

Simple. Benazir keeps saying, “Vardi utaro (take off your uniform).”

That is among the more charitable comments bounding around army headquarters in New Delhi since the general got himself new clothes on Wednesday. The consensus is that Musharraf may be in mufti but he is less likely to change his spots.

South Block and the adjoining Sena Bhavan hold within their walls some of the most avid Musharraf watchers in the world. His every move is analysed, studied and, yes, even envied.

Kayani, his successor as the army chief, has now come into sharper gaze. Sena Bhavan’s first impressions of Pakistan’s new army chief came from television footage of Musharraf’s farewell. The verdict: he pales before his predecessor.

Both wore the traditional British khaki; both sported the green satin sash across the jacket; both had the long red collar tabs — one of the many marks of a general. But Musharraf, an officer here pointed out, was walking ramrod straight, head steady, eyes frozen in the middle distance. Kayani was more shifty, his face more mobile.

“Pervez Musharraf is fastidious about his military bearing,” reads one of the earliest notes made in India’s army headquarters when Musharraf took over as army chief in October 1998.

The general was as particular with the uniforms of his force. He standardised the uniforms of the Pakistan army — British khaki on service or staff duty and the camouflage pattern in field areas.

He often combined a disruptive pattern jacket over khaki trousers. The maroon beret — the signature of the Special Service Group Commandos — to which Musharraf converted after being commissioned in the artillery, was a must except for ceremonies where he donned the peaked cap.

Perhaps only the headgear of the Gorkha units in the Indian army — the jungle hat —boasts the same dash as Musharraf’s beret.

Militaries the world over pride themselves on their uniforms and Musharraf wore his like an advertisement.

Anupama Singh, wife of the former Indian army chief, General Joginder Jaswant Singh, once gushed in Army House that “I fell in love with him (JJ) the day I saw him in uniform”.

She giggled and revealed a badly kept secret: that many of her friends in the Army Wives’ Welfare Association also flipped at the sights of their young men in olive greens.

Sehba Musharraf probably will not demur. Her husband ranks near the top in several lists of the world’s best-dressed dictators of all time. In May this year, sick with suggestion that he give up the battle dress, an indignant Musharraf said nothing doing.

“The army uniform is like my second skin,” he shot back in a news conference in Islamabad.

Yet, here he is today, his wardrobe a little lighter, the second skin peeled off. Is he feeling scalped?

The Indian and Pakistani armies, both born of British parentage, carry a colonial legacy, the Pakistanis a little less so than the Indians.

An Indian officer would have eight different types of uniforms. A brigadier says he needs two large army-size trunks to pack his uniforms for every posting.

The Pakistani army, too, has at least six types of uniforms apart from the British khaki with the green sash that Musharraf sported, and now Kayani wears.

Emptied of the uniforms, ex-general Musharraf’s wardrobe will have space for more. In Agra, during the summit with Vajpayee in 2001, he changed his suit five times in a single day.

I fell in love with him (JJ) the day I saw him in uniform Anupama Singh Wife of JJ Singh

He changed from a formal suit and tie at the start of the talks to a tie-less, open-necked, half-sleeved bush shirt and trousers when he and his wife Sehba went for a walk around the Taj Mahal, and to a white sherwani at dinner — complete with live music by Shubha Mudgal.

Close friend and aide Sheikh Rashid, information minister at that time, had suggested Musharraf’s change of clothes played a historic role that day.

“President Musharraf went to his room only to change as both countries had agreed to the joint declaration. When he came back, the Indian mood had changed,’’ Rashid told reporters at the time.

“Musharraf had gone to change so that he looked good in the photographs. But next time, I think no Pakistani ruler will dare change his clothes when such an important event is taking place.”

Back in India in April 2005, Musharraf set foot in Ajmer Sharif’s dargah in shimmering whites, like a dove with a message of peace. He emerged from the dastarkandi ritual in a shocking-pink turban.

And when he landed in New Delhi an hour later, he was in a formal suit, and the cockpit of his Pakistan International Airlines aircraft flew both the Pakistani and Indian flags.

If this is what Musharraf wears in two days, getting a fix on the amount of fabric and textile that will fill Islamabad’s Presidential Palace from now on is too challenging an idea.

Fashion designer Huma Adnan in Islamabad — from whom Musharraf has sourced a lot of his sherwanis, including the white sherwani he wore to the Agra summit — provides some clues.

The President likes his sherwanis black, white and beige, Huma says. He doesn’t like bright colours. “He has told me that he is a very public person.”

The big sherwani collar — known as bakra collar — is simply not Musharraf, the designer adds. No embroidery either, that’s too loud. Sober kurtis for ghazal evenings? That’s what he really likes.

On Thursday, as he took the oath as a civilian President, Musharraf wore a traditional black sherwani.

Musharraf watchers in Delhi do not readily accept that he will be the same without his uniforms. In Delhi’s Sena Bhavan, many are convinced that clothes make the generals — and often the Presidents — of Pakistan.