Kabul:
At the Indira Gandhi institute for child health in Kabul, there is a desperate wait for the team of Indian doctors to come back. The Indian medical mission at this hospital was temporarily suspended after the February 26 suicide attack in which nine Indians were lost, including one doctor.
The good news is that the team will be back soon, says the much relieved director of the hospital.
"For three months, we had a lot of problems. Fortunately, I've heard that the new team is coming and they will support our OPD and will help us in IPD," he said.
Despite growing inputs of an increased terror threat to Indians in Afghanistan, the infrastructure and humanitarian work worth over a billion dollars goes on but with much more security.
New Delhi knows the stakes are high and won't back down, especially with Pakistan playing the lead role in a political settlement of the war.
So, when over 40 Foreign Ministers met in Kabul on Tuesday, India cautiously joined the others in welcoming President Hamid Karzai's ambitious plan to reintegrate Taliban foot soldiers into the mainstream.
The joint communique reiterated the red lines India had pitched for at the London conference in January - talks with those Taliban who give up violence, any links to terror groups and who abide by the Afghan Constitution.
But India knows the ground realities may be different, especially when Pakistan holds the aces.
"The international community should also ensure that there is no selectivity in dealing with terrorism. One cannot distinguish between Al-Qaida and plethora of terrorist organisations which have imbibed the goals and techniques of Al-Qaida," External Affairs Minister SM Krishna said during the recent Kabul conference.
Pakistan Army knows it has the leverage it wants with the Americans right now, as Washington looks for a way out of Afghanistan. Islamabad firmly believes that India's presence in Afghanistan harms their own interests but this great game, say many analysts, will do more harm than good.
"I think the working together from Afghanistan has stem from the recognition that if both sides aim to reach their maximalist goals, they will end up essentially in an open ended war. That serves neither of their interest. So the first thing that Islamabad has to do is to recognise that it simply cannot control Afghanistan. And it cannot demand an Afghanistan that has no Indian presence. I think that is a recognition that has to begin in Islamabad," said Ashley Tellis, senior associate, Carnegie Endowment.
For India, the main concern is how talks with the Taliban proceed and how much Karzai is willing to compromise with top level leaders backed by Pakistan. Speaking to NDTV, the US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, dismissed a role for the dreaded Haqqani faction, which has known links to the ISI.
"It is hard to imagine any circumstance under which the Haqqanis can be reconciled. They are annihilists, destroyers and they stand for nothing," Holbrooke said.
So, in the great Afghan game, India's stakes are very high. Over the next few months, New Delhi will be watching closely and anxiously to see how this reconciliation effort with the Taliban works out and whether Pakistan is able to push through its agenda here in Kabul.