Benign Competition

India and Pakistan, deadly rivals, were engaged in a benign competition: each was trying to outdo the other in the warmth of its greetings to Visitor Jacqueline Kennedy--and each had obviously decided that the way to her heart was through her fondness for animals. Indeed, Jackie must have thought at times last week that she was visiting an Asian menagerie.

In India, Jackie rode a 35-year-old elephant named Bibi, shrank against Prime Minister Nehru in ladylike horror while watching a mongoose battle a cobra (see cut), saw a polo match and cleared jumps on a horse. Before she left, Air-India presented her with twin tiger cubs: the problem of what to do with them was solved when they died.

In his choice of gifts, Pakistan's President Ayub Khan scored a clear victory: he gave Jackie Kennedy a handsome ten" year-old bay gelding named Sardar, a trained jumper ideal for the fox hunting that she loves to pursue in the Virginia countryside. At Pakistan's ceremonious Lahore Horse and Cattle Show, she entered beside Ayub in a gold-trimmed carriage drawn by six steeds and escorted by 40 mounted horsemen in red coats. As 40,000 Pakistanis cheered, Jackie saw camels dance and salaam, prize cattle parade, horses two-step to drums. Eying a water buffalo that Ayub admired, Mrs.

Kennedy said: "I'm glad you can appreciate him. I'd much rather have Sardar." Where Jackie had thrilled to the beauty of India's Taj Mahal, built three centuries ago by the Mogul emperor, Shah Jahan, as a memorial to his wife, in Pakistan she was excited by the glitter of the 80-acre Shalimar Gardens, built by the same ruler as a memorial to his father. There she strolled along a red-carpeted walk beside glistening pools, while balloons floated about her, fountains shimmered and 7,000 guests looked on. "All my life I've dreamed of coming to the Shalimar Gardens," Jackie told them. "It's even lovelier than I'd dreamed. I only wish my husband could be with me."

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