Reality Bites: Gentle massages and stern messages

I wonder if Americans, Australians, and Japanese citizens find Quad meetings as entertaining as Indians do? But then we’re lucky because our Diyar Leader likes nothing more than making a spectacle of himself. Like the astonishing unsolicited arm massage he gave Australia’s new prime minister Anthony Albanese while he was engrossed in a conversation with the US President.

It’s the sort of thing bullies at school do, slyly pinching fellow students when teachers aren’t looking. I understand that the Diyar Leader was jealous because Biden ignored him and made straight for Albanese, but hey, why punish Albanese for that?

Just as well that the conversation between Biden and Albanese was brief, or else the Diyar Leader’s attention-seeking exertions may have progressed from that arm massage to a full body massage Ayush-style, and every normal Indian (i.e. non-Sanghi) would have cringed and moaned “Mother Earth swallow me now” in one voice.

While the Diyar Leader is over 70 years, he constantly seeks attention like a cranky baby. In India he’s used to being the cynosure of all eyes with people falling at his feet and hanging on to his every word. Not because he’s charming (only bigots find him charismatic), but because they’re terrified of his arm-twisting tactics which hurt far more than his arm massages on world leaders—he’s not remotely gentle with fellow Indians.

Threats of IT, ED, NCB raids, the CBI, UAPA, sedition and other godawful things inspire spineless people to sing his praises.

India's biggest crony capitalists like Mukeshvich and Ratanski have often praised him on national telly when he’s sweetly asked them to (a little nudge from the PMO and a tantalising glimpse of India’s national assets with ‘For Sale’ tags is all it takes), but even that isn’t good enough for him anymore.

As he’s wrecked the economy further, he needs more PR to make him look like a saint, so now he’s got many other industrialists releasing full page ads in newspapers thanking him for decreasing fuel and cooking gas prices by a few measly bucks. Not enough to provide relief at all, which is why all that hysterical PR has kicked in.

Well, guess what? I’m jumping on the ‘Thank you Diyar Leader’ bandwagon too. I cannot afford to publish ads, so I’m doing it in this column. Here goes: Thank you Diyar Leader for making cooking oil so expensive, that I have started eating raw veggies. My skin isn’t glowing yet, and my tummy is as bloated as a blimp, but at least I have saved some money. I have given up carbs too, and stopped using the gas cylinder completely.

If every Indian follows my example, India will have tonnes of wheat and other food stuff to give to the world, and the Diyar Leader may finally get his first meaningful international award for saving the world (apart from India) from hunger. Remember he’s in the dog house now for going back on his brash promise to export wheat while there’s an acute shortage in India?

***

Another thing that was on display at this Quad meeting in Japan was the Diyar Leader’s hypocrisy. There was fascinating footage of a Japanese dignitary gracefully doing namaste to the Diyar Leader, but the Diyar Leader would have none of it! He grabbed the poor man’s hand and pumped it up and down vigorously like it was a rusted tube well handle.

Twitter buzzed and many people pointed out that this is the same man who, when the Covid pandemic broke, piously urged Indians to avoid handshakes and return to traditional namastes. “The entire world is taking up the habit of 'namaste'. If due to some reason we have discontinued this habit, it is the right time to once again take this up instead of handshakes,” is exactly what he said.

The pandemic is not over, but the Diyar Leader clearly believes that he’s so special, rules don’t apply to him. If only Indian cops were like UK cops who made their prime minister Boris Johnson pay a fine for partying and breaking his government’s Covid rules.

Shame that the Diyar Leader gets touchy and vindictive when we call out his flaws, but is ridiculously touchy-feely when it comes to world leaders. They get massages, we get stern messages to fall in line or else!

(Any resemblance to real people or events is a coincidence)