evidence: Beyond the news: Pervez Musharraf, a dictator with democratic pretence [...] The opportunity to ask Musharraf searching question came during an all-party Indian delegation’s August, 2003 visit to Pakistan that captured popular imagination with saturation coverage in that country’s print and electronic media. It was at a meeting with the visiting leaders, including BJP MPs and others such as Lalu Prasad, that the general famously talked about ceasefire at the "blow of a whistle" on the LoC and the international borders. The promise fructified three months later, preparing ground for the January 2004 MoU. In his interaction with the Indian MPs, Musharraf was at his charming best, seeing an opening there for the moribund bilateral engagement. Taken in the most by Lalu Prasad’s celebration by the local media, he jocularly asked the RJD leader: "Hope you’re not planning to contest elections and make a political career here." The banter apart, the commando was left red-faced and speechless when a senior Indian journalist, on being introduced to him, said the tricolour angvastram looked good on his military regalia. As his birthday fell a day earlier, the stole was placed on his shoulder by the Congress’s Margaret Alva as a belated greeting.