Is India a friend, rival or enemy? This was the question journalist Reshma Patil asked the people she met on her journeys through China where she set up the first China bureau of the Hindustan Times. As she travelled from government-run think-tanks to universities where the countrys future policymakers are being groomed, or to state-run newsrooms and economic zones attracting their first-ever Indian investors, the responses that she received ranged from uncomfortable silence to blank stares and frowns. The rarest response was friend, equally so was enemy.