INTERNET CHAT BETWEEN MANMOHAN AND OBAMA

the following correspondence was tapped from the PM’s modem, actually an internet chat with the White House (WH). The methods used were extrasensory, and none of them come under cyber-laws prevailing anywhere, including this country, where there are none.

The PM’s PC monitor lights up with the message “President Barack Obama (BO) would like to invite the Indian PM, Manmohan Singh (MMSji), for a chat”. Here is the complete conversation as it took place:

BO: So, how was your day MMSji?

MMS: As we are almost a working day ahead of you, you’ll know it when you start yours eight hours from now.

BO: MMSji, you are a professor, please put it simply. Eight hours is a lot of time inside the WH.

MMS: Experience has taught me that things that go without saying, sometimes go away when you say them.

BO: I’ll put this down in a file for some future oratory. I am already getting the jitters. How did you manage a second term, when you speak so less?

MMS: Take this one down too: “Rhetoric is the grunt you let out with your first serve. Political matches are won by how well you can volley on the return.”

BO: Getting you. I have been mostly in basketball. We normally win on three pointers in the last five minutes of play.

MMS: You’re doing well as I assess you, but in political games, you make a strategy that forces your opponents to foul. Even a steady flow of single points is enough! You don’t improve your game. You spoil the opponent’s ... something to the effect of what the legendary American Gen. Patton said about winning the war.

BO: Sure. Tell me how you manage good economics and good politics together?

MMS: Elementary, Barack. We managed a negative inflation rate before the Budget session, though it was because of low buying power. We jacked up gas and diesel prices, but spared LPG and kerosene, the common man’s fuel. We admit there will be inflation, but a manageable one. Beyond that is policy that is confidential. We go step by step. We have promised the nation the first 100 days’ performance. We’ll the next turn when we reach the crossing.

BO: How did you manage to avoid “Health” as a major agenda, in a land of a billion people, 70% managing from their pockets, and no credible public or private insurance?

MMS: Take me, for instance, I have had health problems, but all is fine and settled. Fortune favors the bold, they say. The Mumbai disaster turned people’s mind on internal security. We are now spending on NSG hubs. The purpose is the same, to save lives. You should be happy. We’ll be doing quite a bit of shopping from your markets.

BO: I am amazed that Indian judiciary is so liberal that in a day Section 377 was modified. Arnie could not take a step further in a liberalized California that houses Hollywood. Besides, your HIV figures are also pretty much on the brink.

MMS: In India certain sects are bound by strict laws to wear proper underwear, not the ones with a limited guarantee for the elastic. The ones you tie with a proper knot. Many others have adopted the wisdom of the habit. I also secretly speculated that this new deviation shall put some sort of brake to the burgeoning population.

BO: And how do you take care of the Budget deficit? Ours is unmanageable, with loss of jobs and a cash-strapped Fed govt. being forced to release financial stimuli, stress tests, and buy up companies, some sort of retro correction towards socialism. “Free Market Economy” is shattered. Nothing is “free”, show me the “market”, and where the hell is the “economy!”

MMS: A 3,000-year civilization, which has survived, has its subtle ways of uncovering its manholes for prolonged rainy days. We have already announced selling off key public enterprises, and we’ll sell till we break even. The other is selling the 3G bandwidth.

BO: How sure are you the 3G selloff will get you the desired target?

MMS: That is our culture, and it never fails. You can achieve any status or position of profit or power if you know how to say G!G!G! ( actually written as “ji”, just the way you are addressing me as MMSji!). There is never a dearth of those who have mastered the art. In fact it was a long list and we had to politely hold back quite a few of them, telling them we shall give them a chance to say the word when we again run out of money. In India you never insult a man who instinctively says “Ji” to you. I must clarify though that this is the part of a set-up, and not my or any particular individual’s diktat.

BO: Fabulous. But you are also distinctively lucky to have two women behind this successful man, not to say that you are short of merit, but it makes a difference. Like two locomotives required to push a train up a hill.

MMS: Barack, you hit the nail on my turban. No wonder, the word “Bam”, the word that gives you your tribal name, “Obama” in Swahili, further derived from Arabic, means the bent or the “distorted” one. Not to say that I am entirely a saint, my name, ‘Manmohan’, means the one who appeals to everyone’s heart! The wife is a boss, and a boss is a boss all right. I acknowledge my good stars. But you are on the same track. Besides Michelle, you also have the lady behind Clinton’s success - Hillary. Imagine what would be your plight without them. See you at the Sept. UN Meet.

BO: OK, bye, but what was it that you said first to me in Urdu, and do you have another such word while ending this interaction. I need it for my speeches as I have to pacify West Asia, and the Middle East.

MMS: I’ll teach you more when we meet. Actually as a finance Minister, I nurtured a flair of starting my Budget speech with an Urdu couplet. Naturally the suitable ones were the tragic ones, something like, if Keats, was to write, “An Ode to the Economy”, but in those days love was more seductive than money. Yes, when I first met you, I said, “Mubarak”, that spells close to your name, and means “congratulations”. Now that you want me to use another phrase, I’d say, “Barakat Ho”, again close to the spelling of your name, and implies that your agendas be prosperous. I’ll have to leave you now, we have an urgent Cabinet meeting and Soniaji is presiding!



seems like obama picking up a few points on politics from manmohan...