Am'bush'ed !

George Bush Jr’s recent visit to India was hailed by many political analysts as one of the most significant moments in the diplomatic relations between India and The U.S. I was one of the innumerable morons who followed the historic visit very closely. I present a brief summary of the dialogue for the sake of posterity.

1.Prime Minister Manmohan Singh broke the protocol when he personally received President Bush at the Indira Gandhi National Airport. He was flanked by his wife Gursharan Kaur on one side and international actress Mallika Sherawat on the other.Mallika in a traditional Indian way of welcoming guests, pulled out her T-shirt, swirled it over her head and threw it at the President. Bush was overwhelmed by the gesture and immediately made the fairly significant political statement– “The world needs Mallika.”

2.The BJP, the left parties and Arundhati Roy staged a dharna in front of the parliament, all for entirely different reasons. While the BJP had nothing against Bush, they were infuriated by Mallika’s visit to Rajghat. “How can you allow a bitch near Bapuji’s grave?” was what an angry BJP spokesman had to say to the media. On the other hand, the left parties demanded that either Sourav Ganguly be included in the Indian team or George Bush go back to the United States. As usual, neither saw the light of the day. Arundhati had something concrete. “The primary offshoot of so called orthodox impatience which when perceived by different people in different ways manifesting itself, yadda yadda yadda.”

3.Bush donated a cheque worth a whopping thousand billion dollars towards the development of civilian nuclear sector in India at a film awards ceremony in the capital. However he categorically asked Manmohan (Prime Minister Manmohan) to set aside a small amount from the fund to buy some decent clothing for Mallika. He reiterated the need to strengthen the ties between the two great nations and invigorate democracy by joining hands in usurping non democratic governments.

4.Trade pundits were ecstatic after the historic pact and BSE sensex soon crossed the 10000 mark. There was a new found optimism and market was on a bull run. Nobody knows why. Anyways, direct consumers of nuclear weapons, F16/F18 bombers, uranium enriched triacetonetriperoxide, 400 round Uzi assault weapons etc., etc., finally have a reason to smile.

5.The President held a round table discussion with the top entrepreneurs and business men of India. “Poor” Mittal was also present. Bush lent his wholehearted support to outsourcing and firmly believed that J2EE technologies are the answer to all mankind’s troubles. The meeting came to an abrupt end when Mukesh Ambani started narrating all the 2745 ‘Dhirubai ke Sapney’ from his dad’s personal diary. Its time Mukesh stops taking some things very seriously.

6.Later in the day, Bush also visited a center for the bird flu victims in the outskirts of the capital. The media had nothing but admiration when the President shook hands and had face to face exchanges with an inmate named Emraan Hashmi, a move apparently designed to show support for and contain discrimination against the “bird” flu victims.(For more details see this).

7.Nobody knows what he did after he went back to his room that night. Extra precautions were taken to disable ‘star plus’ in his suite, lest he watches “Kyonki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi” and brands India as a terrorist nation on the next day.

8.Bush visited the famous International School of Indian Business at their Hyderabad Campus just before leaving for Pakistan. Another daredevil act of daring to think beyond the IIMs. He interacted with the students and advised them to follow their dreams, just like Dhirubai did. “Either you are with Dhirubai or you are against Dhirubai.” he said. The students uplauded.

That, my dear friends, is a brief summary of Bush's visit to India. I might be slightly off in my analysis but perhaps there is something to be learnt from my wisdom. Peace, love, empathy and social security...