Commentary/Mani Shankar Aiyar

Yawn! Dairy of a somnambulist

Monday

Woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. It was the nightmare that did it. I dreamt I had received an invitation to a swearing-in at Rashtrapati Bhavan. And when I got there it was not for me but Ramakrishna Hegde. Damn him. He ruins my night most nights and then I get blamed for dozing through the day. Would these media blokes be so nasty about me if they were started awake every night by vision of their proprietors sacking them?

I tried to drop off again, but the nightmare continued, now with Kesri bursting in on my reveries with a hideous cackle. I was just getting into a lovely dream of watching Joginder Singh dunking that @%#! Venkatagiri Gowda in a vat of boiling oil, when my bedside telephone rang. It was my private secretary, Mahendra Jain saying. "Your wake-up call, Sir." I promptly fell asleep. At last.

(Fragmentary records (charred but readable) recovered after the recent arson at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, when angry out-patients burnt down the building to attract the attention of doctors on strike, show that the Wake-Up Call was recommended by the AIIMS psychiatrist who was concerned at the serious impact of sleepless nights on the health of the prime minister.

Experiments on a random sampling of Karnataka politicians had shown that they responded best to contradictions. For example, if the Supreme Court ordered the release of Cauvery waters, they promptly turned off the tap; and if the Bachchawat Award said the height of the Almatti Dam be restricted, they promptly raised it. Doctors at AIIMS reasoned, therefore, that if you asked the prime minister to wake up, he'd fall asleep. It worked - like a dream! -- Editors.)

Tuesday

That wretched Mani fellow is at it again; going on and on about me sleeping. Mahendra suggested dunking the guy in a vat of boiling oil. "Impossible, "I told him, "Joginder is stashing away all the oil available to deal with Venkatagiri Gowda. And the deficit in the oil pool account is too large to import any more."

"Then why don't you ask the petroleum minister to release you a few litres from domestic stocks?" suggested Mahendra. He really can be so naive sometimes. Must again ask the Cabinet secretary to find me a replacement. I asked him once. The chap said he would pass on the request to the women and child department. "Why W&C?" I wondered.

"Because that's where they can best get a nanny." He replied - mysteriously. I wonder what he meant.

Anyway, someone has to take Mahendra in hand. So, I patiently explained to him that even though I am Prime Minister (and, therefore, top dog) I can't ask the petroleum minister to spare me any oil because the petroleum minister is from Tamil Nadu -- and the wretched fellow will immediately demand that I match every litre of oil he spares me with an equal number of cusecs of Cauvery waters. Where, then, will that leave me in Haradanahalli?

My explanation only sent Mahendra into deeper depression. "I told you, saar," he said, "better five years as King in Karnataka than five months as Puppet in PMO." I cheered him up. "Don't worry Mahendra, we'll soon be back in Bangalore." I wonder why he looked aghast.

(Clarification from H.K. Dua, information adviser to the prime minister (in conversation with the editors): "The prime minister had got it wrong. He thought Mahendra looked aghast because none less than the prime minister was confirming that they would soon be back in Bangalore. Actually, Mahendra looked aghast because just then I rushed in clutching the day's news-clippings. Mahendra thought I had overheard the prime minister's remark about being back in Bangalore soon and would release it to the press as official. He need not have worried. The press already knew. For I had rushed in without knocking only to show the PM without delay the stark headlines of the day. They uniformly read: 'Gowda back in Bangalore Soon.' Obviously, I should have told the press that the prime minister was not somnambulant - but clairvoyant!")