New Delhi, June 26: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has carried out a "surgical strike" from US soil, literally changing the map of the subcontinent by yanking Attock out of Pakistan and yoking it to India.

"Jab sawa sou crore Bharatiyon ka jazba, kuch kar dikhane ka jazba... Kashmir se Kanyakumari, Attock se Cuttack, poore desh me anubhav hota ho, to deshwasiyon, main aapko vishwas dilata hoon... pichhle kai saalon se jo gati nahin thi, usse tez gati se Bharat aage badh raha hai," Modi told 600 handpicked Indian Americans near Washington yesterday.

"When the zest of 125 crore Indians, the zest to achieve something... (from) Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Attock to Cuttack, is felt in the whole country, then countrymen, I assure you... the pace that was missing in the past many years, India is moving ahead at a faster pace than that."

Attock is in Pakistan's Punjab. The charitable view - echoed by Indian officials -was that Modi, whose fascination for words that rhyme and clever acronyms is well known, had merely borrowed usages from a pre-Partition tradition.

"Attock to Cuttack" and "Khyber to Kanyakumari" were colloquial phrases commonly used then to highlight the expanse of the country. After Partition, these were widely replaced by "Kashmir to Kanyakumari," and "Kutch to Cuttack".

Not for Modi. The officials added that the Prime Minister was speaking without notes or a teleprompter.

Some could not resist injecting a mischievous element, pointing out that Modi had committed no mistake and was being faithful to the RSS.

The Sangh retains its dream of re-establishing an Akhand Bharat - an undivided India stretching from present-day Afghanistan to Myanmar.

The very thought of Modi snatching Attock from Pakistan is likely to tickle many Indians. But unwittingly or otherwise, by choosing rhyme over reality and confining the eastern tip to Cuttack, the Prime Minister has cut out the entire Northeast.

"Kashmir to Kanyakumari", cited not by Modi alone but by many who revel in such clichés, is not accurate either.

But then, the correct southern tip is unlikely to be palatable for Modi. It is now called Indira Point, named after the person who declared the Emergency, on the anniversary of which yesterday he cautioned the nation to be ever vigilant.

The northern tip is indeed in Kashmir, as Modi said, but it too has an Indira Gandhi connection: the tip of Indian-held Kashmir, which falls in the eastern Karakoram Range, is called Indira Col.

However, if the Prime Minister made a mistake, it is business as usual for him. Geography isn't Modi's strongest suit.

Modi has in the past placed the ancient town of Taxila - now in Pakistan - in Bihar, insisted that Alexander was defeated on the banks of the Ganga and confused Bhutan with Nepal.

In case Pakistan makes Attock an issue, geography may officially remain the sole blot on the copybook of the otherwise brightest boy in class. "I want to humbly say that in our three years in power, this government has not faced a single stain," Modi said yesterday.

The Prime Minister also referred to the other "surgical strike" that has so far not resulted in any territorial gains, unlike the one last night.

Without naming Pakistan, Modi referred to the "surgical strikes" against the neighbour last September following the terrorist attack in Uri, and pointed to the support New Delhi had received from across the world. "The world is convinced of India's case, we don't need to do the convincing any more."