There is no conspiracy theory about this. We all saw the footage. It was the man with the dark glasses. The UN has been asked to investigate, but I doubt they will. If it does, it could be a most fascinating study for international relations students. The US guaranteed her safe return. Musharraf struck a deal with her. And then sat there a few days after her death explaining to foreign journalist that she was responsible for her own death.

He accuses Baitullah Mashud who says he is a good Muslim and doesn't kill woman. Then Musharraf says I am not a tribal and I don't kill people. It would be a great moment if all these characters are hauled up in front of UN investigators.

But it's also true that a dozen Zardaris and Nawaz Sharifs put together can't take on the Pakistani establishment the way Benazir did.

Zia-ul Haq's assassination ushered in a new spell of hope and change in Pakistan ; Benazir's murder ironically appears to have done likewise. Must change in Pakistan always be accompanied by murder and violence?

I think again we are mistaking a TV moment for a historical change. The current change in Pakistan started much before Benazir's assassination. Benazir rode into Pakistan on the cusp of that change. And she was brave enough to do it. Ask Musharraf to go out and address a public rally now.

I think somebody had to kill Zia to end his regime. But the people of Pakistan have managed to get rid of Musharraf, or at least defang him for the time being, without killing him. I see that as a sign of progress.

If Asif Zardari or Nawaz Sharif were to ask you for ways to change Pakistan, what would you tell them?

I hope they never get so desperate. I hope they realise that they should occasionally listen to their voters.

Exclusive on rediff.com: The day Zia died

How long will their marriage last? Will it dissolve soon after General Musharraf departs the scene? And how long do you expect the general to survive? Is the general also a prisoner of Army House the way Zia was in the final days of his life, too frightened to venture out for fear of being killed?

I think their marriage is more sweet than sinister. It has been through all the predictable problems of a new marriage when two damaged people come together.

Asif Zardari has spent all his public life either in prison or the Prime Minister house. He was accused of trying to commit suicide by biting his own tongue while in the Musharraf regime's custody. He is probably the only so-called playboy who was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty.

Nawaz Sharif has spent almost a decade in exile, most of it in a Saudi palace, but it seems he has learnt his own lessons.

I finished the novel a couple of years ago when Musharraf was the most well entrenched dictator in the world. I have a clip from his speech in New York where he is boasting that all world leaders -- Bush, Blair, everyone -- takes his calls any time of the day. But now he is a prisoner in his own army house. In fact there is a court case against him demanding that he is an illegal occupant.

I also heard a Pakistani former general, Talat Masud, on a Pakistani channel saying that the only reason he has not gone as yet is that probably no country wants to take him. He is too much of a security risk.

Also, I think he (Musharraf) is a bit of a bore. You wouldn't want to spend your evenings with him. And this is a man who only two years ago was looking into the camera, waging a finger at his own people and telling them things like 'You'll not know what hit you.'

I think a very sensible thing for him to do would be to go to exile in Saudi Arabia and spend the rest of his life seeking forgiveness for his sins and staying away from TV cameras.

Image: Image: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf reacts to a question at Tsinghua University in Beijing, April 14, 2008. Photograph: Liu Jin/AFP/Getty Images

Also read: 'The military wants to eliminate me'

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