Last week, we were told by people in the know - or so we are told - that India-US trade deal negotiations were 'progressing well'. A minister in the know mentioned that if a 'fair, equitable and balanced trade deal happens, it could happen 'any day'', adding, 'it could happen tomorrow (November 12), it may happen next month (December), it may happen next year (2026)'.

Meanwhile, this week, the same minister expressed hope - which springs eternal - that FTAs with both the US and the EU will get 'finalised soon'. One reckons that if that Elizabethan commentator, Bill Shakespeare was trading the boards today, he'd be certainly moonlighting as a trade negotiator.

For, he did describe such stretchy, vague timelines pithily in his angry young man Macbeth's weary lament: 'Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day.' Even as 'deals' advance not with the gallop of Richard III's horse but with the shuffle of King Lear in a storm.

Perhaps progress itself is perpetually imminent, like Samuel Beckett's Godot. For, 2047 can seem like an eternity. Perhaps that is the point. Trade diplomacy thrives on the theatre of anticipation. The longer the play runs, the more the audience believes the climax must be worth it. When like in Saeed Mirza's film, Mohan Joshi Haazir Ho!, it will finally manifest itself in some form or the other.