Modi-Xi summit resembled the ‘boy meets girl’ set-up

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has demonstrated yet again that it is India’s splashiest event management company. Last week, it organised a destination holiday for the Dear Leader and the President of China in Mamallapuram, Tamil Nadu.

To make it sound official (and also to make sure taxpayers funded this vacation), it was grandly called a summit. However, we were assured that this ‘summit’ was just for them to get to know each other better, and not to expect any announcements.

Sort of an arranged marriage set-up where boy meets girl with extended family in tow, and then boy and girl slip away and have tender coconut water together to talk about their hobbies and tell each other exactly how they eat mangoes/rambutan/whatever.

Meanwhile, the grandparents, parents, aunties and uncles stay at home and discuss serious stuff like sarees, borders, who is going to pay for what, and can alcohol and non-vegetarian food be served at the reception at least, for God’s sake!

It brings us so much joy that the Dear Leader is thoroughly enjoying his second childhood. The MEA ensures that there’s a fancy-dress party for him every day, with eggless cakes and all.

His day out with President Xi had a terribly original theme: ‘When in Tamil Nadu dress like Tamilians do’, and so a veshti was made for him. Now, I don’t want his tailor to lose his job (unemployment is very high) but he got the measurements wrong and the shirt was far too tight around the middle.

No matter, the beach ball look went quite well with the sea in the background. I was a little perturbed though that the Dear Leader was playing the role of a guide on the temples in the area, because hello, as much as we adore him, we have to admit that history and facts are not his strong point.

Meanwhile, cynics are trying to rain on his parade. They say that he’s desperately trying to woo Tamilians by dressing like them and mugging up a few lines in Tamil. Perhaps they’re right because he upset Tamilians terribly when he threatened to impose Hindi on the state. He was forced to backtrack, but by then they had turned their backs on him.

Only the AIADMK (the orphaned ruling party) loves him like they loved their dear departed mother, who would tenderly remind them to brush their teeth every morning, wash their hands before meals, not to eat with their mouths open, etc. The helpless things really did not know what to do without her till the Dear Leader kindly stepped in and promised to issue instructions. The sweet old man has kept his word every time a contentious vote is called for in Parliament.

Well, I for one am glad that he’s holidaying instead of working, because when he rolls up his sleeves, he comes up with bizarre things like demonetization, and makes us very sad. While I do not grudge him his holidays, I do wish he would stop forcing news channels to show us his holiday videos.

Nobody likes watching anybody else’s holiday videos (boring, and they make us feel envious, besides). In fact, the Dear Leader recently demonstrated that even a great man like him feels jealous too! Look how he rushed to the media and sneered on national television after his Defence Minister went to Paris, prayed to a plane, and decorated it with limes, chillies and other lucky charms.

The Dear Leader was understandably upset. First of all, he should have been the one to go to Paris, it was so not fair that Rajnath Singh went instead!

To add insult to the injury, Singh imitated him and wore a fancy dress, gasp— not on! And then the media, dumb pets that the Dear Leader had trained himself, had the cheek to gush over Singh like he was their master too!

This is probably why the chastened MEA stopped Arvind Kejriwal from attending the climate change summit in Denmark. It’s no secret that Kejriwal loves the camera as much as the Dear Leader (and Rajnath Singh) and that he’s far more intelligent than both of them put together.

His holiday video would probably be far more interesting, and get many, many more hits on YouTube. Now, we can’t have that happening, can we?