The report, "Anupam Kher denied Pak visa for literary festival" (February 2) was intriguing. Doesn't it sound whimsical and ironic that the actor was among the 18 Indians, who have been invited to the four-day Karachi literary festival by the organisers, but the only one whose visa application was rejected?
No wonder the actor is dejected due to this diplomatic faux pas by the Pakistani establishment and has questioned the rationale behind the move, saying, "I am wondering if it is because I am a Kashmiri Pandit or because of my views on the tolerance debate in India."
Kher should probably try to contact the Congress' Mani Shankar Aiyer and/or Salman Khurshid: both of them might be of "enormous" help to him. While Aiyer told the Pakistani media last year that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should be removed if talks between the two countries had to resume, Khurshid said last month that Modi had not clarified India's policy on Pakistan.
S Kumar New Delhi
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