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Come home, Lalit Modi! All is forgiven

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Shiv Aroor
Shiv AroorJul 03, 2015 | 09:47

Come home, Lalit Modi! All is forgiven

If I were Lalit Modi, I wouldn't be able to sleep. I wouldn't even want to sleep. I'd be afflicted by the sort of sweet insomnia we've all had as children on a night before a school trip. As my luxury Learjet purred over the Caspian (or whatever exotic sea he's constantly flying across), I'd gaze mistily out the window as night gave way to day and with it, the promise of more remote-controlled bedlam.

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Glee

I'd barely be able to contain a childlike glee at how my effortlessly steady (and un-spellchecked) tweets have at least two pillars of the world's largest democracy, the government and press, dancing to my every tune. On a pair of strings. A third pillar, I'd tell myself high up over the Adriatic Sea, will join the mela on July 20 when the monsoon session of Parliament begins. I would allow the exhilaration of such possibilities to completely strip me of the need for sleep. Sleep can wait. This cannot.

Let's bring Lalit Modi home. Because let's face it, he's earned his ghar wapsi. Of his many glorious triumphs in the last three weeks, he must undoubtedly count as a crowning feat the fact that all Indian politicians, journalists and millions of fans both online and offline probably check his Twitter feed before they even brush their teeth. Even accounting for the law of diminishing returns in such a manic campaign, and the cynicism intrinsic to politics and the press, Lalit Modi has managed to hold us riveted. Even those pointing and laughing at Lalit's unhinged assaults are scrolling through his tweets with the other hand. Give him that.

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Energised each day by this formidably devoted audience, spanning party headquarters, newsrooms and no-access power corridors that run inexorably from Delhi to Chennai, Lalit Modi owes himself a glinting smile. Commandeering middle class India and all its news priorities can't be easy. Well, deal with this, Lalit appears to be saying: It totally is.

Lalit's serial baiting of "important" folks now has all the allurements of a drug. He's decided he's going to light as many fires as possible while the going's good. Distance and money bring him a videogame like invincibility. And he knows it. The clatter of his weapon, loaded with ammunition built frequently on no more than gossip and intercontinental WhatsApp hearsay, begins and promises not to stop. Wait and watch next week for the real #LalitGate! he promised, before proceeding to ambush an unsuspecting BJP spokesperson on Wednesday night, accusing him at once of getting a top Hindi journalist fired while filling his pockets through a questionable tent business. Lalit Modi is armed. And the slightly stunned silence among most of those he's baiting suggests he's at least a little dangerous too.

Cocktail

Lalit is a cocktail perfectly blended. The ingredients that are easy to guess are the ones in most such aperitifs: arrogance, megalomania, that clean vodka of opulence. But there are others that truly define the drink in his hand: A splash of slightly demented petulance, a nicely aged duplicity and a deep, almost innocent sprinkling of conformity. He'd love for you to mistake any one of those ingredients for iconoclasm. But alas, we know our drinks, don't we.

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It's easy to be vexed by Lalit Modi. But once you set aside that urgent, nasal lisp, his personalised cigarette-box and the Ferrari he reportedly sends to receive guests arriving at Heathrow, you'll see more. Frankly, few can look beyond all that. I imagine it's difficult to wonder about the reasons to welcome Lalit back to India when you're still dealing with the annoyance of his childlike self-aggrandisement.

Arrogance

But there are other feats it would be wrong not to mention here. For instance, that effortless manner in which Lalit Modi manages to sound both like a contemptible jerk and a messiah in the same breath, sometimes weaving between the two. That artful way he talks about living life king-size because he's doing God's good work against the filth of India's political class. Lounging by a Balkan lagoon while asking some hapless, venal neta thousands of miles away, via Twitter, to explain what he was doing in such-and-such place with such-and-such person. Hit a Montenegran bar with a gaggle of important hangers on, light up a monogrammed cigarette, and regale that cozy little audience with tales of how he would be murdered the moment he set foot again in his unkind motherland. Try drumming up that sense of self-importance. Even as a joke. It isn't easy to do. Give him that.

Oh, another reason to clear his return: He's a name-dropper. Naomi. Paris. Even Fidel Castro. What could be more Indian (or Delhi) than a man who chooses to finger an establishment through a splendid Instagram account? But there's nothing tacky about how Lalit Modi does it. Because, remember, on Wednesday night he announced that intends to start a (ascending drumroll) global anti-corruption NGO to expose Indian netas. I propose we give Lalit Modi some space in Lutyens Delhi. Ghar aaja.

When the glitter has settled, and when #LalitGate has been boiled down to its basic, the story isn't a complicated one. Beyond the obsession with sarkari documents and emails that unfailingly "nail" Lalit Modi's connections and proximities with the high and mighty, this is the story: None of them want Lalit Modi back in India.

Frankly, I can think of no better reason to bring him home.

Last updated: May 26, 2016 | 16:57
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