Internal affairs

Home is where the maachh is. Or so Pranab Mukherjee would have Taslima Nasreen believe. The external affairs minister demonstrated that he is not bad at ‘internal’ affairs either (meaning purely gastronomic ones!). Taslima’s unhappiness in her forced exile in Delhi has made news from Champs Elysées to Chittagong, but very few people know how hard Pranabda has been trying to keep the Bangladeshi bombshell in good humour. Given that the road to every Bengali’s heart is through a stomach filled with fish, he cannot be said to have adopted the wrong tack by sending platters of rui kalia, ilish bhaape, chingri malai curry and other fishy affairs every day to the writer’s home-in-exile in Chittaranjan Park. But Taslima is made of sterner stuff than the soft, succulent fish that she loves. And so, Pranabda’s return gift is the accusation that he is sending fish to Taslima when he should be sending her home — to Calcutta.

Road to Rangoon

Thankfully, Pranabda had a more relaxed encounter with Myanmar’s foreign minister at Hyderabad House in the capital last week. The talk over a lavish dinner took an interesting turn when Jairam Ramesh asked the visiting dignitary whether he knew about the Myanmar connection of several Indian politicians. Of course, the guest was clueless. So Ramesh enlightened him — CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat was born in Burma (as Myanmar was called then). Pranabda added that former West Bengal CM Ajay Mukherjee lived in Burma for many years. And then it was revealed that Congress gen sec Ahmad Patel’s wife hailed from one of the most aristocratic families of Rangoon (now Yangon). Could there be a better candidate for the post of ambassador to Myanmar, wondered some of the Indians at the table.

Khaki goes pale

The men in Jhandewalan are unhappy. They feel they have been let down by LK Advani. How dare Advani absent himself from Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s Ram Setu rally after the swayamsevak brotherhood made him their prime ministerial candidate? A senior wearer of khaki shorts was heard saying, “Advani ka sar se Jinnah ka bhoot abhi tak nahin utra hai (The ghost of Jinnah is yet to leave Advani)”. Hindutva is a lost cause with Advaniji, feel RSS men in despair. Didn’t AB Vajpayee too keep a safe distance from RSS functions? The RSS insiders promptly quip: can Advani show us the kind of following Vajpayee had?

Fitness mantra

A new member has joined the Indian Science of Body and Mind Improvement club. She is none other than Panabaka Lakshmi, the Union minister of state for health and family welfare. Lakshmi sent a greeting card to MPs bearing the note — “Know Yoga, know peace; No Yoga, no peace”. Lest our politicians missed the point, the card also had nine commonly performed asanas, and ended with a terse message: “Perform yoga to keep fit”. But the recipients of the card were not amused. Some of them were even heard grumbling that if there was one person who needed to follow the health tips, it was the portly Lakshmi herself.

In and out of trouble

No sooner did Sonia Gandhi utter “maut ke saudagar” than Rajiv Shukla, following his leader, called Narendra Modi “India’s Osama bin Laden”. Before he could blink, the BJP had lodged a complaint against him with the Election Commission. But Shukla is not your average neta. He has connections in very high places, including high places in opposition parties. So he connected — with BJP’s legal man, Arun Jaitley (who shares Shukla’s love of cricket), over some chhole-kulchas. In his affable, back-slapping way, Shukla is known to have told Jaitley, “Since you have drafted the complaint against me, please draft my reply as well...” Whether Jaitley agreed is unknown, but perhaps the EC won’t be too harsh on Shukla after all.

Guess who’s coming to dinner?

It is Narendra Modi. And guess who’s hosting the dinner? The answer — surprise surprise — is J. Jayalalithaa. Over Chettinad chicken — oops, sorry, Modi is a vegetarian, so sambhar and curd rice maybe — puratchi thalaivi will surely hint at gravitating towards the NDA again.

Words of wisdom

I&B minister Priya Ranjan Das Munshi’s new adviser: his wife, Deepa. And the advise: Stop Door- darshan from covering every programme you attend.

FOOTNOTE

The party’s over

Narendra Modi’s win in Gujarat, one hears, has forced some Congress leaders to report to sick bay. Take Sonia Gandhi for example. Madam was reportedly down with an asthma attack, but many in her party are beginning to think that Sonia’s illness has a bit to do with the Gujarat debacle. Madam, they believe, is mightily upset, not so much with the Congress’s defeat, but because her “maut ke saudagar” comment has been cited as one of the factors that helped Modi win the crown. This, they suspect, has aggravated her illness. Congressmen were thus a worried lot this New Year. Even the hospital’s daily bulletins, confirming that all was well with Madam, have failed to lift their spirits. Soon enough, true to party traditions, some senior leaders such as Motilal Vora and Arjun Singh started reporting sick. Party insiders are hoping that this, at least, would make Sonia feel better and help her recover fast.