Finding NaMo

I love the fact that President Obama is coming to Delhi for the Republic Day parade and it is always a great spectacle and we are, as a nation, a very hospitable people, we even invite strangers sitting next to us on a plane to stay in touch and call if they are in our city again.

Look how warmly we welcome our Prime Minister every time he visits India or is passing through to another sellout performance somewhere in this wonderful world. I love the way he scampers down the plane, so full of bounce and beans. After all, our PM needs to be well rested. We cannot afford a jet lagged PM.

Just think of the cost of all the flowers handed to him when he gets off the plane which he does not even look at. And everyone to-ing and fro-ing to the airport to greet him like Caesar after vanquishing Pompey, another nation conquered, another speech given, more fans than Justin Beiber. The flowers had hardly wilted from the Oz trip when he was off to Nepal to attend the SAARC conference. In the interests of austerity, they can be reused tomorrow as he pops into Delhi again.

Always reminds me of that line from the song in Sound of Music: “How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?”

Which is what I am worried about. Not the flowers but the heavy schedule. Next stop London and the Queen, then who knows, South Africa for a tryst with Gandhian history and a million Indians in Durban. The way he is on a roll, we might even have him hosting the Oscars at the Kodak auditorium and appearing on Sesame Street. If I could make a deal with him, I’d act as his event manager and sell tickets and obtain sponsorships and make lots of money. Boy, is he marketable!

I was tossing and turning in bed last night and my wife says, why are you stressed, what is the problem (she is a caring soul, this one) and I say, what if Obama arrives in India and Namo is at the Royal Albert or Wembley or he has a gig in Rio, that won’t look nice, will it and it will make everyone in Pakistan so excited that Obama was snubbed and that could lead to an extended stay in Afghanistan and we’d have to suffer all those talk shows interpreting the ramifications. I am sure the PMO has worked out his itinerary and he’ll be able to squeeze Obama and Michelle into it before he flies out again, now go to sleep.

There’s the Sheherezade initiative at Carnegie Hall on the same day, I say, to fight against violence towards women, he’s a natural for it.

They’ll find someone else, switch off the light.

It is not that simple, I say, Namo is bigger than the Indian cricket team when they are on a winning streak, if he continues like this, he could be the first NRI Prime Minister ever. He could be a PIO. But that is not all. Now that Namo has given Americans a free pass into India, Barack might feel it only fair to give him a green card in return and then the next thing you know, he might shift to the US and become a candidate for their elections, our loss their gain, you see where I am coming from, I mean President Modi of the United States, how does that sound?

I don’t think the Pakistanis will be pleased, she said.

They won’t, I said, but he’d be ideal for the State of the Union address.

Which Union, asks my wife sleepily.

That, I said, is the crux of the problem.