Commentary / Mani Shankar Aiyar

Commerce Minister: How can you talk of import? I am the import/ export minister.

Industry minister: Arrogant so-and-so. Should have finished you off in the JPC. Fairgrowthwallah..

Prime Minister: Order, order. Finance Minister, please continue. I am only closing my eyes to concentrate better.

Finance Minister: The fiscal deficit, the revenue deficit, the budget deficit...

Home Minister: Yes, and the secular deficit too. Let's talk about Mayawati. You go talk your deficit to your Harvard friends in Wall Street! The real issue, Mr Prime Minister, is UP. If we don't solve UP, we won't be here to sort out the finance minister's deficit.

Finance Minister: Not my deficit. This Cabinet's deficit in letting railways and communications....

Home Minister: Yes, and the Prime Minister's deficit in sending Bhandari to Lucknow without letting me know. What do we do about UP?

Prime Minister: All is in the hands of God. When Narasimha Raoji was Congress president, I at least understood what he was saying. Now Kesriji comes and talks to our steering committee in Hindi, and before Ibrahimca even start saying bissibelihulla, he's gone. You tell met what to do.

Home Minister: How can it tell you what to do? Our party line is that we must steadfastly oppose anything Bhandari recommends. Our UF line is that we must steadfastly support anything Bhandari recommends. The home ministry's line is that Bhandari recommends nothing. Instead, Bhandari is asking us to recommend. Who has the majority to form the government. And Stalin is dead, so I don't know what to think.

Health Minister: That reminds me of a sher...

Prime Minister: Why is the health minister suddenly talking about tigers?

Industry Minister: There is no deficit in our relations with the Sri Lankan Tigers..

Foreign Minister: Gentlemen, gentlemen, not sher as in tigers, but sher as in poetry.

Prime Minister: Bommai, why did the Hindi teacher you sent me not teach me this?

HRD Minister: Another Hegde plot, Sir. He recommended the Hindi teacher.

Prime Minister: How often must I tell you not to take that devil's name in Cabinet?

Foreign Minister: In any case, it is not Hindi. Sher is Urdu for poetry.

Prime Minister: How do you know?

Foreign Minister: I, chairman, Urdu Committee.

Prime Minister: I thought he foreign minister.

Information Minister: Now, he foreign minister; then, he chairman, Urdu committee.

Prime Minister: When?

Welfare Minister: Ho, ji, when Hegde chief minister.

Prime Minister: One more time you take Hegde's name, you resign -- or I resign.

Home Minister: Won't be necessary. We'll all be moving out soon.

Finance Minister: The IB chaps tell me, Manmohan will be back soon -- and I can go back to opposing liberalisation -- and you..

(The rest of the extract is to smudged with chutney droppings, tomato sauce stains, and the best Bengali market asli ghee to be deciphered any further.)