A Good Fall

                         Kaw caw    

                              A Good Fall

The other day, Avatarji and I were strolling casually in the Ornamental Park, Greater Kailash-I. A gentle breeze fanned our cheeks and the birds twittered in the trees. Everything seemed to be exuding peace and harmony. There was not the tiniest wisp of impending danger.

Suddenly, Avatarji slipped. His foot unexpectedly fell into the crevice between the pavement and the hedge. In front of my eyes bulging with horror, his tall frame seemed to fall sideways in slow motion, his descent decelerated by the  thick, bushy , luxuriant  foliage. I tried to come to his rescue by making a desperate lunge at his receding sleeve. Luckily, I did not connect, or else I would have also fallen, perhaps on top of him.

Some walkers tried to see what was happening. Most were just on-lookers, with no plan of action. One middle-aged lady noticed that I was no good as a saviour and my intervention might make the situation worse. She  bent down and caught hold of Avatarji’s arm. He continued to fall slowly but the momentum was noticeably reduced.

I could see with a sense of horror that Avatarji’s totally bald pate was moving inexorably towards the iron grill that protected a growing tree. Had the collision taken place with any strength or power, his head would have split open and he would have suffered all the trauma of a head injury with concussion.

Luckily, the timely intervention by the middle-aged lady  saved the day. Avatarji’s head reached close to the grill, but did not touch it.

Meanwhile, other people had reached the spot, and their combined effort brought Avatarji back on his feet.

“Thank God!”, I exclaimed.

Avatarji actually smiled. He was totally unfazed. It was as if nothing had happened.

The middle-aged lady had a question. “ How come, when there was no crowd, you walked so perilously close to the edge? It reminded me of the ponies we hire in the hills. There are narrow mountain paths. On the one side is the steep mountain face, and on  the other extreme is the edge of the precipice. It always fascinates me how the pony invariably chooses the perilous path, often dislodging  a loose stone or two and you pray mentally you would not be hurtled to a violent death by a precipitous fall into the void!”

Avatarji laughed. “ The pony inspires me. I think the brave prefer a violent death to a slow  ignominious exit.”

I tried to match his savoir faire. “There is no doubt that the mule is an ideal model to follow.” Then I spoke my unspoken thought. ““Avatarji! Jokes apart, that could have been a very nasty fall.”

Avatarji grinned. “As it turned out, it was a good fall. You can see, not a scratch or sprain and not the faintest possibility of a fracture.”

“The Lord be praised!”

Avatarji’s iconoclast spoke,” Why bother the Almighty? As a Saviour, the lady was enough.”

                                         **********

A Complete Package for Return of Kashmiri Pandits

A Complete Strategy for Return of Kashmiri Pandits

                        Humour at the Hustings



The elections that we saw this time around were one long laugh. Even those of us  who are born sourpusses and cannot see the humour in a situation even when it is packaged by Raju Srivastava or Kapil Sharma and is accompanied by loud canned laughter will also agree that we have been witnesses to the ultimate comedy show bordering on farce.
Look at the way the BJP conducted its campaign.There was a single motif, the adulation of a single individual. Just as Sachin fans chanted “Sachin, Sachin!” at the time of his retirement, the devotees of the demi-god Narendar chanted “Modi, Modi!” even at the beginning of his campaign. The religious flavour could also be tasted in the “Namo, Namo!”mantra.
As the campaigning progressed, the managers got bolder and bolder. They presumed that “Ab ki baar Modi Sarkaar” (this time around, a Modi regime) was already a reality. Modi’s kurtas became smarter and smarter, his achkans got a designer cut and his body language spoke of a foregone victory. He told his mammoth audiences that they had tolerated the Congress for sixty years, this time around they should hand over the country in his charge for only sixty months and see the miracles that he would perform. It was as though if there were more time for the polling he would raise the ante and promise the moon even if they made him Prime Minister for only sixty minutes!
This was positive thinking at its best. A Stephen Covey or Shiv Khera would have nodded their sage heads in emphatic approval. By the time we went to the booths, Modi had convinced the entire nation about his magic Gujarat model of development. He made tall claims about the benefits of the Gujarat model. Strangely enough, many experts ( including the Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen ) differed from him and quoted chapter and verse to disprove his claims.
They asserted that Gujarat had always been a leader in the pace of economic growth and there was little evidence to prove that the pace had accelerated during Modi’s regime. In fact, 5874 farmers had committed suicide in the last one decade. This figure was published in the official report of the National Crime Records Bureau.Modi blithely dismissed this report as exaggerated and gave out that only one farmer had committed suicide. The status of women and children on the nutrition index was demonstrated to be very low. He dismissed the whole thing with a joke about Gujarati women not attaching importance to their physical beauty. He boasted of having provided employment to youth.Official statistics showed that several thousands of small enterprises had  in fact folded up.
The extent of playing with figures bordered on the ludicrous. Modi claimed that in Vibrant Gujarat mahamela 2011, projects worth US $ 450 billion had been signed. The actual FDI flow into the whole country for 2010-11 was a mere US $ 30 billion    and Gujarat’s share was a paltry 2.38%. Modi alleged that he had 2 million Twitter followers. Independent investigators found that only 10% of that number were genuine followers, the remaining 90% were a fabrication.
Modi’s realpolitik came to the fore in his treatment of the Lokayukta appointment. From 2003 to 2013, he did not permit the post to be filled up.He would not approve of the name suggested by the Chief Justice of Gujarat. Matters reached a point where he tried a daring coup by passing  fresh legislation for the Lokayukta , by virtue of which he would decide who the Lokayukta would be and the said dignitary would not have jurisdiction over the misdeeds of the Chief Minister and his Council Of Ministers. It took the combined prowess of the High Court and the Supreme Court to upset his plans.
Modi is a former pracharak of the RSS and as such well versed in the art of using the language to achieve his political objectives. During the election rallies,he used the phrase Shehzada for Rahul Gandhi and not Yuvraj or Rajkumar. He knew that Shehzada would make him sound  like a Muslim and revive the rememberances of  Moghul princes like Salim and Aurangzeb. Rajkumar or Yuvraj would have evoked the racial memories of Hindu epic heroes like Rama and Bharata.
One of the hilarious episodes in the election related to the overwhelming demand that he apologize for the 2002 Gujarat riots. He was handicapped by the fact that Atalji had castigated him in no uncertain terms for violating his rajdharma. He repeatedly refused to express his regrets and when cornered took recourse to a simile by saying that we are saddened even when a puppy is crushed by our car. When some Muslims objected to being compared to dogs, he said that we Indians were very conscious of the rights of all forms of life and were pained even if we trampled an ant underfoot.
An interesting sidelight concerns the way Modi and Rahul managed their TV interviews. Modi had  a pathological aversion to interviews. Perhaps it was the result of his earlier experience of 2008 when he was interviewed by Karan Thapar for CNN/IBN and took the umprecedented step of walking out in the middle of the interview when Karan starting putting the heat on him for the 2002 riots. He went even to the extent of cancelling a recent Facebook interview promised to Madhu Trehan. He finally surfaced on the India TV channel, where a patently partisan Rajat Sharma  known for his Hindutva leanings gave him a long rope. He even allowed him to import a studio audience totally devoted to BJP and Modi and did not prevent them from breaking into thunderous applause at every response of Modi. The hand-picked Judge also made sympathetic noises  and found no charge proved against Modi.
Rahul Gandhi , on the other hand, offered himself as a sacrificial goat at the blood-spattered altar of Arnab Goswami. As expected, Arnab made mincemeat of the young tyro and made him look a fool. His interview made him the favourite whipping boy of every anchor and commentator of the country. It took another interview by Ansari to somewhat redeem his reputation.
The Aam Aadmi Party unwittingly generated dollops of merriment in political circles. They were unable to grasp what kind of animal Arvind Kejriwal was. Many people started by believing all that Arvind stated. The AAP administered a high voltage shock to the entire political class by winning 28 seats in the elections to Delhi assembly.That is when the drama began.
Kejriwal started by refusing to form the Government , but the BJP and Congress raised such a shindy at his reluctance to assume office, that Arvind had to change tack . Having stated his gut feeling that he would not take the outside support of any party, he decided to see whether he could extract a written assurance from the two giant parties on a 16-point agenda. The BJP gave a verbal and the Congress a written assurance. Arvind then took the unusual step of going back to the voters to elicit their mandate. When he gathered that most people wanted to see him in office, he did so.
Arvind’s problem was that he gave categorical assurances and fixed unreasonably tight time frames for fulfilling them. He then unwisely started to implement the assurances overnight. In this he was egged     upon by his political rivals.
Any fool could have told him that the Congress would pull out the rug from under his feet. When he tried to have his Jana lok Pal bill passed, both the Congress and BJP refused to give support and brought down his government. Then they went about the country tomtomming the lie that Arvind had found it impossible to govern and had run away from his responsibilities.
It was the strategy of his rivals that they would tie him down to Delhi and not let him spread the AAP virus in other parts of India. At best he would have time to put up candidates in a few urban centres.
By his resignation, Arvind belied their expectations. He toured the length and breadth of the country and put up 300 candidates. He went to Gujarat and bearded the lion in his own den. He said he would oppose Modi wherever he stood from. Narendar Modi  took the highly unpopular step of throwing out party stalwart Murli Manohar Joshi from what was felt to be a safe BJP stronghold of Varanasi and filing his own nomination from there.
When Arvind dared project himself as his rival from Varanasi, Modi supporters tried all the tried and tested techniques of blustering and bludgeoning rivals. They organized black flag demonstrations, threw black ink and eggs at Arvind and his supporters, and roughed them up in many locations across the country. When questioned on these dubious fascist tactics, they alleged that Kejriwal was himself having these attacks organised, as he wished to remain in the headlines.
To top it all, a propaganda blitz was launched that Kejriwal was a highly ambitious person and he had resigned from thr Chief Ministership of Delhi with the sole objective of projecting himself as a Prime Ministerial candidate. Simultaneously, it was announced that surveys did not give Aam Aadmi party anything beyond 3 seats in Parliament, if at all they were able to open their account.
In between, there were sideshows like the SP alleging that Modi was a Hindu fanatic as he refused to wear the skull cap of the Muslims and Modi calling Netaji Maulana Mulayam .
Priyanka lashed out at her cousin Varun and Menaka came out like a tigress to defend her cub.
Sharad Pawar apologised to the Election Commission for having advised (in lighter vein, he claimed) to master the art of removing the indelible ink from their fingers so that they could vote from two different places.
Amit Shah apologised to the Commission for having threatened to take revenge upon the Muslims and saying he was only paraphrasing Barack Obama ‘s comment that one could best avenge oneself through voting.
To sum up, this huge farce which was supposed to be the harbinger of a new era in India’s political history has reduced itself to this. A 63- year old grizzly- haired almost- unmarried RSS pracharak who spent most of his life selling tea is declared by most pollsters  to be a sureshot winner. He will easily  trounce a 43 year young prince charming schooled in Harvard, Cambridge and Oxford possessing almost hereditary rights over the prime ministership of the country.Plus he has  made an IIT alumnus former Additional Commissioner of Income tax a butt of national ridicule.
Let the dudes of Youngistan playing with their apps and gizmos put that in their pipes and smoke it!

*************************

HUMOUR AT THE HUSTINGS

WHAT IS IN A SNORE?

     Kawcaw

What is in a snore?

When I got married, on the wedding night, my wife Raj asked me. “Tell me about your major vices.”

I was in a fix. “If I tell you, you will leave me.”

“No, I will not. Promise.” she said with conviction. “But I need to know”.

I debated within myself, then decided to be frank.

“I smoke,” I said.

“Which brand?” she asked.

“Four Square,” I said, and added, “filter tipped.” Then I volunteered. “But if you insist, I will give it up.”

“No,” she said, “I love the aroma of filter-tipped cigarettes. Anything else?”

“I snore”, I said and laughed. She joined in the laughter.

In thus blithely dismissing snoring as a minor physiological defect, we both committed a major blunder. I presume that all these 47 years it must have been an irritant to Raj, waking her up when a particularly sonorous blast hit her eardrums. In fact, my performance was such that it even woke me up. But we just ignored the phenomenon as an inconsequential aberration.

Till the day I returned from my morning walk and was rewarded with a cup of tea. Suddenly I switched off and the hot tea spilt over my thigh. The damn thing made such a clatter as to summon Raj from the kitchen.

*What happened?” she enquired, picking up the pieces of broken china from the floor.

 I tried to dismiss the whole thing as “one of those things. I probably did not sleep well last night. I must have dozed off. Sorry about the cup. Was it very expensive?”

She raised anxious eyes to my face. “I am not worried about crockery, I am worried about you. The other day, we were talking to Usha and you switched off in the middle of a sentence. You probably went to sleep.”

“Did I? I don’t seem to remember.” I tried to make light of the whole affair.

We left the matter unresolved. One evening I went to attend a lecture at the India International Centre. My brother Predhiman had come to Delhi for a couple of days and I took him along .I was presiding over the function and was seated on the dais, I suppose in full public gaze.

During the presentation of the second speaker, I closed my eyes in order to better concentrate on what he was saying, I told myself. The next thing I knew was a gentle nudge from the third speaker Kapil seated to my right on the dais.

“He is about to finish,” Kapil whispered to me. I woke up. I realized that I had fallen asleep while presiding over a lecture.

On our way back, Predhiman told me that he was wondering how to wake me up without making a scene. He tried to ring up my mobile, but I had put the damn thing in silent mode and it just registered a missed call.

The matter was getting to be serious. Raj insisted that I see a doctor. That is when I learnt that the Pulmonary Department in Safdarjang Hospital also dealt with Sleep Medicine.

When the doctor heard my story, the text duly embellished by Raj, he enquired whether I snored. I thought he was being facetious. What could snoring have possibly to do with it?

But he was dead serious. He told us that snoring was a symptom that showed the body was not getting enough air. I would have to be admitted for a night so that the doctors could study my nocturnal behaviour.

Soon my sleep pattern was converted into computer-generated charts and diagrams, which the doctors studied with all seriousness.

They told us that the graphs revealed that on an average, in one hour, my sleep was interrupted 78 times. This limited the intake of air. I would have to buy a C-pap machine for about 50,000 rupees and use it regularly. Fortunately, I was covered under the C.G.H.S. and they would pick up the tab.

So snoring is no longer a phenomenon that one can dismiss as a joke. It is sleep apnea, a pretty expensive disease. In future, when we investigate the credentials of a prospective son-in-law, along with his horoscope and certificate of being free from AIDS, one would now also have to be sure that he does not snore!

                                         **********************

A SUCKER AND A CHUMP!

                                                  A sucker and a chump!




I vividly remember that day. It was the sixteenth of March, 2014. We had partaken of lunch and sleepily watched an insipid episode of a saas-bahu serial. It was the holy siesta hour of a lazy Sunday afternoon, when you languidly slip into  blissful slumber and do not welcome any impolite intrusions on your privacy.
Suddenly, the telephone struck a strident note. Raj picked up the instrument, mumbling something incoherent under her breath.
“It is your brother Rupji from Pune,” she announced.
I was intrigued. Rupji is not a frequent caller and he would normally respect the sacredness of a post-prandial nap on the holy day of Sabbath.  Something extraordinary must have happened to jolt him into action.
“Yes, Rupji, is everything all right?” I asked a little petulantly.
He did not try to elaborate. Without any introduction, he  said, “ So you are in Delhi. I thought so, I thought so. I told Neeta as much. Did you go to London by any chance?”
I was flummoxed. What was he talking about?  I said,” Look, Rupji, I don’t understand what you are talking about. Why should I go to London? Who would send me to London?”
Rupji sensed the annoyance in my tone. He deigned to elaborate, “ Bhai Sahib, I am not making an idle query. Obviously, some hacker has got into your account and sent a fictitious mail to some of your friends.”
I was jolted into wakefulness. “”Hacker, what are you talking about? What letter?”
“you obviously don’t know. Some miscreant has hacked your e mail account, busted your password and mailed an SOS to some of your friends. The mail says that you are in London and in serious trouble. You have asked me to send you a thousand pounds at a particular address. It is a loan and you have promised to repay it at the soonest. Have you sent out any such call for help?”
I was perplexed. “ Who could have done such a thing and why?” I bleated.
“Well, such pranks made sense a few years back when we were new to internet and telephonic communication was difficult. I am sure any friend of yours who receives this letter will pick up the phone and ring you up. Hardly anyone would send the money without verifying the facts.”
“ What do I need to do?” I asked Rupji.
“For one thing you must change your password. Make it as difficult as possible. Do not use the names of your wife, siblings, children or grandchildren. Do not use the numerals from your date of birth , residential or office address. Put as many spanners as you can—punctuation marks, spaces, capital letters, slashes, hyphens and so on. Also send a counter mail to your friends.”
I thanked Rupji and got to work. As I set about undoing the damage, I discovered that my facebook account had also been hacked. So I changed my passwords, informed all my contacts through a mass mailer and complained to Google mail.
During the next three hours, I was repeatedly called to the phone. A.K.Jalla was in London. Gautam Kaul had rung him from New Delhi and told him about the prank. My batchmate A.K.Das rang up from Lucknow. Incidentally, he informed me about the release of his next book of verse. My nephew Vaibhav researched in Bangalore and found out that the miscreant had first attempted the hacking on 12th March. Google mail got back to say that they were keeping a close watch on my accounts.
Incidentally, many of the mails I sent out to my contacts came back undelivered, as the addresses were wrong.
No friend of mine has so far reported that he was taken in by the prank and sent the desired thousand pounds at the address given. One friend commented that the hacking was not a professional job. No one would send money to a hotel address these days.
When the dust settled down somewhat, my mother made a pertinent remark. “Why did they target my poor son, of all persons?”
No one answered her query. The answer stared us in the face. I was reminded of a prank played on Bertie Wooster in a Wodehouse story. Bertie asked the miscreant why he had targeted him. He replied, “ You looked such a chump I thought you would be an easy victim.”
All my life, people have committed the mistake of taking me for a ride, because I looked such a chump. I am a sucker, but not such a chump as people thought.

*********

A SECRET INTERVIEW WITH RAHUL GANDHI

A Secret Interview with Rahul Gandhi

(Rahul Gandhi gave a TV interview to Arnab Goswami. It was widely condemned. Since then Rahul has been advised to evade TV anchors like the plague. I am not a TV anchor and so he has made an exception in my case.)

I: Good evening, Mr. Gandhi. It is kind of you to agree for a TV interview, especially after your maiden attempt had brought you more brickbats than bouquets.

RG: Good evening. At this stage, the interview is for your eyes only. It will be scanned by my media team. If they approve, you can share it with everybody.

I: Suits me.  Basically, I am on your side. It hurt me to read all those snide comments on Twitter and in the print media. I wish to show that given the chance, you are capable of giving short and pithy answers to pointed questions. Shall we start?

RG:  Go ahead.

I: You are a beneficiary of the dynastic system that prevails in the Congress party. Does this bother you?

RG: No, it does not. There is no dynastic system in the Congress. Jawaharlal Nehru was there purely on his own merits. He was picked up by Mahatma Gandhi.

Nehru did not nominate Indiraji as his successor. In fact, he was succeeded by Lal Bahadur Shastri.

After Shastriji, Indiraji was nominated by the Syndicate. She showed remarkable leadership qualities by winning the only war we have won in India’s long history.

The country tried the Janata experiment, but it did not last. Indiraji had to be brought back.

After Indiraji, Rajiv won a three fourth majority in the Lok Sabha.

Over the years, the country has tried out various options—V.P.Singh, Narasimha Rao, Chandra Shekhar, Deve Gowda, I.K.Gujral et all.

At last, Soniaji had to be brought in. She gave the Congress resounding victories in 2004 and 2009. So what is the big deal?

I: Don’t you feel it shameful that India with its millions of people is unable to find a ruler from among us Indians?

RG: Don’t you see the spirit of self-abnegation shown by Soniaji, when she refused to assume the prime ministership just because she did not wish to impose a Sushma Swaraj minus her hair on the Indian nation?

I: So many things happened during the last five years, but you did not proactively respond?

RG: Contrary to your hype that my word is law within the party, the fact is that until recently nobody listened to me in the inner councils. Whenever I made a suggestion, I was pooh-poohed as a young novice who did not know what he was talking about. It was so frustrating. The only way to uphold one’s dignity was to maintain a studied silence.

I: To whom did you make the suggestions?

RG: At first I spoke to my mother, but her response was, “Come on, Rahul Baba, play with your toys.”

I: Goodness gracious! What was your age at that time?

RG: I was six.

I: Did you expect to be taken seriously at that age?

RG: No, but you can understand my position.

I: Did you try to intervene at the time of the anti-Sikh riots in 1984?

RG: I was just 14 at that time. One of my Sikh friends at school told me that my father’s comment about a banyan tree falling with a great thud had not been appreciated by his parents. I told dad about it. He explained that his Hindi was weak and he had only repeated a proverb that his Hindi tutor had taught him.

I: When you were older, did you talk to Dr. Manmohan Singh about various issues, like the price rise, for instance?

RG: Yes I did. But he was the Prime Minister and so old and experienced and an internationally known economist. So what could I tell him?

I: What did you say and how did he respond?

RG: I told him that onions were selling at hundred rupees a kilo and tomatoes at eighty rupees a kilo. He was surprized. He had not been told about it. That day I learnt that the Prime Minister does not read the newspapers and magazines, does not watch the TV channels, does not buy stuff for his house and does not talk to vegetable and fruit vendors. His sole source of information is the Intelligence Bureau.

I:But does Gursharanji not tell him?

RG: I discovered that the Prime Minister’s family is wholly insulated against such knowledge. The Prime Minister’s House is the centre of bustling activity. There are meetings of the Cabinet, Cabinet Committees, Groups of Ministers.and important visitors. Eatables and vegetables are constantly being prepared. The   Director, Prime Minister’s Household, a senior IAS Officer, runs the entire show. Members of the PM’s Household also partake of the meals. There is a standard charge for the PM’s Family. The amount was fixed in 1950 and has not been revised since.

I: That is quite a revelation. It explains how the PM maintains his composure.

RG: Indeed it does.

I: When did your interventions start having an impact?

RG: I was able to raise the membership of the Youth Congress and the National Students’ Union of India to 25 lakhs. We won the 2009 Lok Sabha elections handsomely, belying all the doomsday prophecies.

I: So were you not given the credit?

RG: No. The funny part is that when the Congress won, it was due to other factors. When it lost, I got the blame.

I: When were you actually commended for what you and you alone had achieved?

RG: Well, it happened so suddenly. Ajay Maken was holding a press conference. I was feeling highly frustrated. The Supreme Court had passed a historic judgement making those convicted of a criminal offence and sentenced to imprisonment for two years or more ineligible for being elected or holding office. I had welcomed the judgement in inner party circles.

I: So?

RG: So I was looking at the news on the internet. It came as a shock to me that the Government was bringing forward an Ordinance to annul the decision. I talked to my mother. She said that if we did not annul the decision, some of our closest allies would be unseated and they would withdraw their support. I was totally frustrated. I left the house to breathe some fresh air.  Suddenly, I found myself in Ajay Maken’s press conference. I went in, not knowing what I was doing. I was highly excited. I got up to leave. Then I sat down in a different chair.

I: Then?

RG: Then you know what happened. I heard myself saying that the Ordinance was nonsense and should be withdrawn. After throwing this bombshell, I literally ran out of the Press club. I did not know how my mother would react to this outburst. The TV channels went viral. They did not understand what was happening. They thought I had gone berserk. But the funny part is that after the din and noise had settled down, everyone fell into line. What I wanted was approved and the Ordinance was withdrawn. Thus I discovered the power of the Moral Action.

I: What would you say are your major achievements?

RG: Well, whatever the Congress has innovated, has been the result of my initiative. That includes the RTI, NREGA, Women’s empowerment, Lok Pal Bill and so on.

I: Some people say that it was the success of the Aam Aadmi Party that pushed you into passing the Lok Pal Bill.

RG: That is partly true. I said as much on television. It vindicated my stand that even in politics “Honesty is the best policy”. I find that the bigwigs in my party are now more amenable to my proposals.

I: But you do not apply this principle in the every day functioning of the party. You did not sack Virbhadra Singh, although there was an open and shut case against him.

RG: I am not at liberty to divulge the details. All I can say is: “Abhi picture baqi hai.”

I: What about Ashok Chavan and Suresh Kalmadi?

RG: The law will take its course. We have not given them tickets.

I: Why has the Congress not declared you as its prime ministerial candidate?

RG: Because we do not have a Presidential form of Government. Because the Congress party believes in following the Constitution.

i: But the BJP declared its candidate well in advance.

RG: Because they had so many candidates. Had they not nominated Modi, there would have been utter chaos.

I: Will you be the Prime minister if the UPA comes back to power?

RG: It will be for the MPs to decide.

I: Do you think the UPA will win? All the polls seem to indicate otherwise.

RG: These polls have been proved wrong in the past.

I: But what is your assessment?

RG: I think we will win and form the Government.

I: But everyone says there is a Modi wave sweeping the country.

RG: That is paid news.

I: One last question. When will you marry?

RG: Soon.

I: Thank you, Mr. Gandhi, for being so frank and forthcoming in your answers.

RG: Thank you.

                                         ********************

 A Secret Interview with Rahul Gandhi

(Rahul Gandhi gave a TV interview to Arnab Goswami. It was widely condemned. Since then Rahul has been advised to evade TV anchors like the plague. I am not a TV anchor and so he has made an exception in my case.)

I: Good evening, Mr. Gandhi. It is kind of you to agree for a TV interview, especially after your maiden attempt had brought you more brickbats than bouquets.

RG: Good evening. At this stage, the interview is for your eyes only. It will be scanned by my media team. If they approve, you can share it with everybody.

I: Suits me.  Basically, I am on your side. It hurt me to read all those snide comments on Twitter and in the print media. I wish to show that given the chance, you are capable of giving short and pithy answers to pointed questions. Shall we start?

RG:  Go ahead.

I: You are a beneficiary of the dynastic system that prevails in the Congress party. Does this bother you?

RG: No, it does not. There is no dynastic system in the Congress. Jawaharlal Nehru was there purely on his own merits. He was picked up by Mahatma Gandhi.

Nehru did not nominate Indiraji as his successor. In fact, he was succeeded by Lal Bahadur Shastri.

After Shastriji, Indiraji was nominated by the Syndicate. She showed remarkable leadership qualities by winning the only war we have won in India’s long history.

The country tried the Janata experiment, but it did not last. Indiraji had to be brought back.

After Indiraji, Rajiv won a three fourth majority in the Lok Sabha.

Over the years, the country has tried out various options—V.P.Singh, Narasimha Rao, Chandra Shekhar, Deve Gowda, I.K.Gujral et all.

At last, Soniaji had to be brought in. She gave the Congress resounding victories in 2004 and 2009. So what is the big deal?

I: Don’t you feel it shameful that India with its millions of people is unable to find a ruler from among us Indians?

RG: Don’t you see the spirit of self-abnegation shown by Soniaji, when she refused to assume the prime ministership just because she did not wish to impose a Sushma Swaraj minus her hair on the Indian nation?

I: So many things happened during the last five years, but you did not proactively respond?

RG: Contrary to your hype that my word is law within the party, the fact is that until recently nobody listened to me in the inner councils. Whenever I made a suggestion, I was pooh-poohed as a young novice who did not know what he was talking about. It was so frustrating. The only way to uphold one’s dignity was to maintain a studied silence.

I: To whom did you make the suggestions?

RG: At first I spoke to my mother, but her response was, “Come on, Rahul Baba, play with your toys.”

I: Goodness gracious! What was your age at that time?

RG: I was six.

I: Did you expect to be taken seriously at that age?

RG: No, but you can understand my position.

I: Did you try to intervene at the time of the anti-Sikh riots in 1984?

RG: I was just 14 at that time. One of my Sikh friends at school told me that my father’s comment about a banyan tree falling with a great thud had not been appreciated by his parents. I told dad about it. He explained that his Hindi was weak and he had only repeated a proverb that his Hindi tutor had taught him.

I: When you were older, did you talk to Dr. Manmohan Singh about various issues, like the price rise, for instance?

RG: Yes I did. But he was the Prime Minister and so old and experienced and an internationally known economist. So what could I tell him?

I: What did you say and how did he respond?

RG: I told him that onions were selling at hundred rupees a kilo and tomatoes at eighty rupees a kilo. He was surprized. He had not been told about it. That day I learnt that the Prime Minister does not read the newspapers and magazines, does not watch the TV channels, does not buy stuff for his house and does not talk to vegetable and fruit vendors. His sole source of information is the Intelligence Bureau.

I:But does Gursharanji not tell him?

RG: I discovered that the Prime Minister’s family is wholly insulated against such knowledge. The Prime Minister’s House is the centre of bustling activity. There are meetings of the Cabinet, Cabinet Committees, Groups of Ministers.and important visitors. Eatables and vegetables are constantly being prepared. The   Director, Prime Minister’s Household, a senior IAS Officer, runs the entire show. Members of the PM’s Household also partake of the meals. There is a standard charge for the PM’s Family. The amount was fixed in 1950 and has not been revised since.

I: That is quite a revelation. It explains how the PM maintains his composure.

RG: Indeed it does.

I: When did your interventions start having an impact?

RG: I was able to raise the membership of the Youth Congress and the National Students’ Union of India to 25 lakhs. We won the 2009 Lok Sabha elections handsomely, belying all the doomsday prophecies.

I: So were you not given the credit?

RG: No. The funny part is that when the Congress won, it was due to other factors. When it lost, I got the blame.

I: When were you actually commended for what you and you alone had achieved?

RG: Well, it happened so suddenly. Ajay Maken was holding a press conference. I was feeling highly frustrated. The Supreme Court had passed a historic judgement making those convicted of a criminal offence and sentenced to imprisonment for two years or more ineligible for being elected or holding office. I had welcomed the judgement in inner party circles.

I: So?

RG: So I was looking at the news on the internet. It came as a shock to me that the Government was bringing forward an Ordinance to annul the decision. I talked to my mother. She said that if we did not annul the decision, some of our closest allies would be unseated and they would withdraw their support. I was totally frustrated. I left the house to breathe some fresh air.  Suddenly, I found myself in Ajay Maken’s press conference. I went in, not knowing what I was doing. I was highly excited. I got up to leave. Then I sat down in a different chair.

I: Then?

RG: Then you know what happened. I heard myself saying that the Ordinance was nonsense and should be withdrawn. After throwing this bombshell, I literally ran out of the Press club. I did not know how my mother would react to this outburst. The TV channels went viral. They did not understand what was happening. They thought I had gone berserk. But the funny part is that after the din and noise had settled down, everyone fell into line. What I wanted was approved and the Ordinance was withdrawn. Thus I discovered the power of the Moral Action.

I: What would you say are your major achievements?

RG: Well, whatever the Congress has innovated, has been the result of my initiative. That includes the RTI, NREGA, Women’s empowerment, Lok Pal Bill and so on.

I: Some people say that it was the success of the Aam Aadmi Party that pushed you into passing the Lok Pal Bill.

RG: That is partly true. I said as much on television. It vindicated my stand that even in politics “Honesty is the best policy”. I find that the bigwigs in my party are now more amenable to my proposals.

I: But you do not apply this principle in the every day functioning of the party. You did not sack Virbhadra Singh, although there was an open and shut case against him.

RG: I am not at liberty to divulge the details. All I can say is: “Abhi picture baqi hai.”

I: What about Ashok Chavan and Suresh Kalmadi?

RG: The law will take its course. We have not given them tickets.

I: Why has the Congress not declared you as its prime ministerial candidate?

RG: Because we do not have a Presidential form of Government. Because the Congress party believes in following the Constitution.

i: But the BJP declared its candidate well in advance.

RG: Because they had so many candidates. Had they not nominated Modi, there would have been utter chaos.

I: Will you be the Prime minister if the UPA comes back to power?

RG: It will be for the MPs to decide.

I: Do you think the UPA will win? All the polls seem to indicate otherwise.

RG: These polls have been proved wrong in the past.

I: But what is your assessment?

RG: I think we will win and form the Government.

I: But everyone says there is a Modi wave sweeping the country.

RG: That is paid news.

I: One last question. When will you marry?

RG: Soon.

I: Thank you, Mr. Gandhi, for being so frank and forthcoming in your answers.

RG: Thank you.

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