[Open letter] How Modi proved long-distance relationships can work

Dear Mr Modi,

Congratulations upon completing one year in office. 

Although, you would say, where’s the surprise? You’re probably going to be around for at least nine more years, and South Block of the Secretariat building, from where you run your worldwide operations like a society more secretive than the Opus Dei, communicating only through inscrutable tweets and life-sized images of you in various stages and distances of abandon, will still be missing you much. 

Did I say “missing” you? Aah, yes! For Mr Prime Minister, you are like the generalissimo who’s always away conquering new lands and people. Metaphorically, of course. You’re the conquistador of commerce, covering continents with the swing of your suits and the bark of your boots. It’s only when you are in this blighted country of ours that the monogrammed miracles turn into blistering blunders, when your hugs and first-name camaraderie don’t get instantly reciprocated. 

Mr Modi, I know you’re being ridiculed in some nincompoop quarters of politics and media for being a “suit boot ki sarkar”. What a thoroughly ill-informed accusation! I ask your detractors, and there are aplenty, are you supposed to don chappals and kurta-pajama and your trademark Modi jacket (which used to be Jwahar coat, after Jawaharlal Nehru, but kudos to you and your skills of absolute cultural annihilation) on your travels to say Mongolia, with its screechy subzero climate, or China, when you have to mock-wrestle with Jinping’s terracotta veterans? 

Or when you have to out-Shah Rukh Shah Rukh at Madison Square Garden? And your name is not even Khan! Twenty-thousand NRIs comprising business honchos and political strongmen from remotest corners of the United States of America all screaming and shouting like teenage girls who have just spotted King Khan, and all you are armed with is giant LED screens, billboards and a tiny event management team to keep all the morons shouting “Justice for 2002” out of sight. SRK knees would have weakened to achieve even a fraction of the rock star show that you put up in the heart of New York City. So what if the Bollywood superstar has taken Yale by storm? Indian-American girls swooned when YOU uttered "senorita" and DDLJ got a fresh lease of life. Along with touching-fifty NRI grooms of Shaadi.com. 

You impressed Empress Michiko of Japan by simply popping up beside her. All the while, disseminating knowledge acquired through “chai pe charcha” in galis and mohallas of dusty Indian cities and towns. You ensured the blasted Americans knew their chai tea was just beverage tautology as misplaced leverage. You ensured the flimsy French haggling for their fighter jets for a decade now get to be finally blessed with your acquisitive promptness. You clicked selfies with pretty children of Japan and with the barely-smiling premier of China. You looked dapper when regaling the Chinese first lady with authentic Gujarati recipes to facilitate shuddh desi romance between the elephant and the dragon, both of which, incidentally, happen to be Asian tigers. Taxonomy is just a mendicant’s habit of getting in way of good storytelling.    

Mr Modi, there are those who dare to put giant question marks in your “one year report card”. How typical! Mr Prime Minister, don’t these marauding macaques know that any good marriage between a nation and its prime mover has to have a long honeymoon period? And where does one spend his honeymoon, pray? Of course, appreciating the endless courses of a White House dinner with the POTUS. It was written in the stars since it rhymes with LOTUS, which you helped re-blossom. Now, there’s no other flower, not even the vainglorious red rose, that can challenge the lotus’ peerless supremacy! Or, aboard a ferry on the spotless Seine (obviously to obtain helpful advice to successfully execute the Clean Ganga mission!) Wasteful, and you? Never, ever. Never, ever, ever. Ever. Never.

Mr Modi, your long-distance love for India has been amply demonstrated in your “strategic and long-term view” of the country’s foreign policy. So fie those who compliment the minister of external affairs for the outstanding turnaround in the India-Bangladesh land deal. (Wait a second, I need to answer the teeming millions who do not know that Sushma Swaraj, and not you, is the concerned minister here. Go away, you hiccupping hyenas!) And so what if you gave away one billion dollars to Nepal and Mongolia each at the start and stop of your first year in (and out of) office? You singlehandedly stopped Bihar floods of last year from spiralling out of control. After the earthquake, had it not been for your generosity, the puny country would have still been measuring rubble with coffee spoons (and some Himalayan hash). And now, you have warded off Beijing with strategic gifts to Mongolia, tactical tilts in Japan and deliberate dandyism in France to complete the outer circle of “Modinfluence” which far outmeasures China’s Ring of Fire in and around South China Sea. Maritime is merry time, you have taught the world, while sipping gooey milky tea. 

Nineteen countries in 12 months, sixteen state visits included. Which other elected servant-in-chief could accomplish that in India? Hell, we Indians did not even know how to be proud of our ancient glories until you spoke of genetic engineering wonders displayed by Ganesh’s elephant head! And which other prime minister made greater impact with non-aligned movement than yourself? All we saw this past year was so much movement, but the alignment, Mr Modi, is still a riddle, like the secret behind a perfectly tossed omelette! So what if some sloganeer that you have not stepped into a Muslim country as yet? What do those Pakistani agents know of serious foreign policy? And while farmers may hang themselves because they have lost their crops to vagaries of premature ejaculation from weather gods, your buddies David Cameron of the United Kingdom and Barack Obama of the United States will keep you soft and supple, like the posterior of a one-year-old. 

Happy first anniversary, dear Modiji. It must be sweltering hot in Mathura now. Fruits khayiye naa!