Commentary/Mani Shankar Aiyar

'And Johnsahib said, Kipling wrote: The night is meant for hunting/The day is meant for sleep!

Friday

It didn't work! Dua tells me that a typesetter at The Indian Express has slipped it to him that Tavleen Singh's next column is going to be headed: 'Kesri Fidgets While Gowda Sleeps'. I am within an ace of being toppled for having slept at night. And till yesterday, I was being told I was in danger of being toppled for having slept by day. What is one to do?

I think I have an answer. I'm not telling anyone except you, dear Diary. I'm going to Calcutta tomorrow to receive John Major. That is what one wants -- Kannadigas around me can't even get it to the press that it is only my concern for the poor that makes me close my eyes. Do they want me to keep my eyes open and have the poor starve?

(Madhu Dandavate, deputy chairman, Planning Commission, recalls (in conversation with the editors): "It was around this time that we got a bizarre note from Yugandhar in PMO asking if we could co-relate the closing of the prime minister's eyelids with the fall in the poverty ratio. We ran some programmes through Perspective Planning's computer but the computer kept spluttering: "Samjhe nahin; paagal ho gaye ho kya?''

So we sent back a note to Yugandhar saying no statistically significant co-relation could be established. We got a reply asking us to go in for Kannada-speaking computers. As the instructions were not understood, we filed the instructions. Fortunately, the government did not last long enough for a reminder to be received.)

Saturday

Had a wonderful afternoon with John Major -- after we had got through a ghastly morning with all those CII chaps droning on incomprehensibly about Global Deposit somethings. And something called Sensex. (I am glad those Kannada women picketing Bachchan's Beauty Show were not around. It would have ruined my reputation on my home turf, rustic, they think I don't understand. When every time Ibrahim collapses giggling, I know exactly what's on his mind.)

Anyway, after all the delegates had left to visit their business partners in Presidency Jail (what a curious place to hold private business meetings!) Johnsahib and I got together for a lovely little chat. He was most sympathetic. He asked me if I knew Kipling. I asked him whether that was one of those new multinational fast-food outlets in Bangalore. He didn't laugh -- or get angry. Really, these foreigners are so polite.

He told me that many, many years ago there was a great English poet called Rudyard Kipling. When he left school, he decided to become a journalist. He couldn't find a good job in London, so he came to India. (See -- from England to India -- and this morning about our being a poor, backward country. If we are poor and backward, why would English people come all the way from England to India to get a job?)

Anyway, Johnsahib told me that when this Kipling chap arrived in India, he was fascinated with the jungles and the wild animals and the lions and he cobras and the tigers. And he wrote the Jungle Book, which is, like our Upanishads, full of deep thought and profound wisdom. And, said Johnsahib, Kipling wrote: The night is meant for hunting/The day is meant for sleep!

There, I told you: That's why I sleep during the day and work during the night. Much better to get a foreign endorsement of my habits than the weird excuses Dua thinks up.

Sunday

Wonderful day, Slept right through it.