"I like Hugo Chavez."
"You liked his saying he will pull his country out of World Bank and IMF."
"That's right and the rest of us should follow suit."
"Are you crazy? Musharraf would never allow it."
"I thought we had broken the begging bowl."
"We glued it right back. I mean how can you mistake political rhetoric with reality, for Pete's sake?"
"So now what!"
"They want money from donor agencies and can I tell you a secret?"
"Sure."
"The Musharraf government wants money before June so they can make some mileage out of it for Musharraf's reelection."
"That's silly. I mean Musharraf will get reelected not because he got some more money out of donor agencies whose bread and butter is provided by us the tax payers - I mean we pay taxes, the government borrows and then we have to pay back and..."
"But isn't it concessional lending?"
"Not the lending we want for dams."
"But then why do we go to these agencies with their conditions and all - why don't we go to the Western commercial sector?"
"Because we are dumb! Correction our economic team is dumb and perhaps the Western commercial sector does not trust us because we still have a dictatorship! These donor agencies can no longer impose conditions on India because India won't accept them."
"Sure proof that we have lagged far behind India."
"Absolutely!"
"So what must we do?"
"We must hope that things with change and we can put the country back on the path to democracy and economic sovereignty..."
"But BB and Nawaz Sharif..."
"Will find themselves challenged within their parties - they both were facing serious challenges when Musharraf seized power and derailed that process..."
"Ah yes."