TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Habibie Center and the Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center in Jakarta for the first time last week co-hosted an event, a discussion of the book, Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China (Harper Collins, 2008), by Pallavi Aiyar, a combination of travelogue, reportage and memoir.

Pallavi, who was introduced by the Indian ambassador H.E. Gurjit Singh, went to Beijing in 2002 to teach English news writing at the Beijing Broadcasting Institute and later became China bureau chief for The Hindu. She discussed her book's portrayal of China through Indian eyes and vice versa, a reflection that reveals the failings and achievements of both civilizations. She writes about the labor efficiency that leads China to practically throw together a hospital while noting that a 20-meter underpass in Delhi takes three years.

Throwing a spin on the subject, while introducing Indonesia into the conversation was Desi Anwar - senior journalist, TV producer/writer anchor and photographer, who in her twitter account says she’s ‘happy with all her chakras balanced’.

Pallavi, meanwhile, pointed out that on the Chinese side of the border, there are new highways and trains that run on time, on the India side, there is nothing but "potholed chaos," Desi in her comment reiterated that Jakarta for 26 years had discussed the idea of an MRT (mass rapid transport) system which yet has to see the light of day.

In India, said Aiyar, there is real political and linguistic freedom, while in China; one can be jailed for stating an unpopular opinion. In response, Desi recounted her own experience interviewing President Jiang Zemin in 2002, and getting a shock upon coming back to her hotel room to see her own face on the TV news every hour on the hour, "because in a country with no news, a foreign journalist interviewing the president is the news." (*)