To my Prime Minister

Dear Mr.Prime Minister,

Pranams.

I don’t know if Rahul and his mom consider you as the Prime Minister of my country. But you are my Prime Minister. I don’t care about what illiterates and half-baked pundits think about you. ( Note: Rahul is Rahul Gupta of Class III, my son’s friend at school and his mother is Smt. Soundarya Gupta, lest you should be mistaken).

So, you are my Prime Minister and I consider you as one because you are sitting on the same chair that Atal Behari Vajpayee once sat. And I know how powerful he made me feel when he was the PM. Therefore the position of the Indian Prime Minister wields that much power and prestige and I consider that you also have the same. And not to forget Indira Gandhi who tired even Nixon and Kissinger.

Apologies, I forgot to introduce myself. I am one of those 1.2 bn guys who calls India his home, an ordinary citizen of the great nation.

Let me come to the point.

Sir, I know that you have been too busy these many years surviving and putting up with the bunch of folks who call themselves ministers in your government. I know it would have been too much for you, considering your age and erudition. Even we are not able to bear with the budget speech of your finance minister, just one minister, and you have to bear with the ramblings of many such. I pity you though.

But there is something I need to tell you for sure. And that is about the country called India.

There was this half-baked poet called Mahakavi Bharathy. He said in Tamil ,’பாரத நாடு பழம் பெரும் நாடு, நீரதன் புதல்வர், இந்நினைவு அகற்றாதீர்’. I will translate it myself soon as if you ask any of your Tamil Ministers in your cabinet to translate it for you they might come back and say that they didn’t know Hindi. Any ways, here is the translation – “India is a great country and you are her children. Never ever remove that thought from your minds”. That is what this poet had said in 1915.

I don’t care whether your party comes to power next or the other folks from Gujarat come to power. Who ever comes I would only expect to see that you guys don’t damage my country.

So I , as an ordinary common-man of this country, has developed that much dare devilry that I am offering some tips for you :

See Sir, your time is almost over, save six months. Now you have nothing to lose. So I recommend that you follow my tips and I am sure you would be counted as one who chose to change the course of India for the better.

If you have come this far, thank you for this. Please read on :

The US Consul episode concerning Devyani. i am not so naive to believe that there is nothing more to it than meets the eye. So, just in case I am wrong and just in case the US wants to show its muscle, here are some ways of handling them.

The US understands just one thing – Dollar. So, make an announcement of a strategic partnership with Russia on a transnational oil pipeline. Don’t need to actually execute that. Just make an announcement something to the effect that this oil pipeline is to commemorate the 60 years of India-Soviet friendship. No need to believe in that. But the US will come scurrying around.

Please ask Pranab da to make a visit to Venezuela and Brazil with a stop over in Cuba. And then on the last leg of the journey, let him visit Beijing and admire the beauty of the ‘Forbidden City’. And don’t forget a photo-op with the Chinese Premier. Next you can expect John Kerry to come to India leading a business delegation.

And Sir, there is this city called Teheran. It has a great heritage. It was the home of the Parsi community until some time. So, it would be helpful for your Petroleum Minister’s health to go to Teheran to visit the different centers of learning there and then accidentally happen to meet with the Iranian President and incidentally happen to invite him as the Chief Guest for the oncoming Republic Day. Even before he comes back to Delhi, you can expect the US to issue a stamp on Mahatma Gandhi followed by a rousing speech by its President from the White House. (Yes, he has already fixed his economy by speaking). Before I forget, make a speech on the possibility of paying for Iranian gas not by currency but by a commodity barter arrangement.

The IIM in Ahmedabad wants to have a discipline to study alternative payment mechanisms for world oil trade. So you could institute a chair in the IIM to explore such a possibility. Or at least make an announcement. And the next call would be from Saudi Arabia offering oil for rupees.

And before I forget, the French President would want to come to India to get photographed in front of the Taj Mahal. And that is the time when Raffale Aviation would also issue a statement that the Indian Air Force has evaluated their fighter jets and are closer to inking a deal. And voila, the US F-35s’ would have depreciated by 50% and would be available on e-Bay. And the US Marshalls who had ‘inadvertently’ and ‘erroneously’ and ‘due to lack of application of mind’ arrested Devyani – they would be booked for a traffic offence. How coincidental all these would be.

And the best part is, for any one of the above, you don’t need permission from anybody.

I just expect that the seat of PMO becomes as powerful as it was in 2004.

And if everything else fails, there is an easy way as well. Send this Dig Vijay Singh to Washington as India’s Ambassador. He will find that George Washington came to power due to RSS help and start talking on that. You could forget the US for the next ten years.

More tips to follow in subsequent mails.

Thank You for your time.

Right Off Center, an Ordnary Indian.