Flying the flag — the Vajpayee way

Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee’s three-nation tour to Germany, Russia and France, via Switzerland this week, is already said to be costin...

Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee’s three-nation tour to Germany, Russia and France, via Switzerland this week, is already said to be costing quite a packet to the exchequer, even as South Block officials insist that its a small price to pay to fly the flag in the world’s most exclusive clubs. First, the party in St. Petersburg to celebrate the tercentenary of Peter the Great’s city where only 43 leaders worldwide have been invited, after which part of the guest list moves on to Evian, France, the little old-world village which also gives its name to expensive bottled water. So far, so good. But we now learn that South Block was quite keen, actually, on making this a five-nation trip and wanted the PM to inaugurate the 7th Hindi World Conference in Surinam (in South America) on June 6, after or before which he could have also done either Mexico or Brazil or both. Someone, thankfully, put their foot down and said no.

Which is why the Surinam conference will now have MoS Digvijay Singh in attendance, besides which New Delhi is sponsoring as many as 50 people on an all-expenses paid trip to the South American country. The Hindi states have also been asked to send a few people, and they will likely add up to another 50. Bhishma Agnihotri, the BJP’s ambassador for NRIs abroad, will be there of course as will other friends of the BJP abroad. Meanwhile, back home, MPs are said to be busy lobbying both the PMO and Digvijay Singh’s office to get on to that plane to Surinam — via Amsterdam or New York.

Fixing it on the Ascension Day

Don’t blame the Germans if its top-notch industrialists are unavailable for the day New Delhi has allotted for a meeting of minds with Indian businessmen, during PM Vajpayee’s Germany visit beginning on May 27. The MEA has given Munich the honours on May 29. Unfortunately, that’s Ascension Day, the day Catholics believe Christ ascended to heaven, and Munich in Bavaria, is a big Catholic city. In fact, the whole country is on holiday that day, as Germans take out processions to mark their faith and priests conduct open-air masses and people generally spend time together. Both German and Indian businessmen are quite unhappy that this day had to be chosen and they have already pointed out that if there’s not much of a crowd to listen to the PM, External Affairs Minister as well as Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley, then it’s not really their fault.

Meanwhile, there’s quite a programme organised for the media party accompanying the PM. In Munich, they’re being taken to a beergarten, or a beer hall, where Hitler in 1923 is said to have attempted a putsch to take power. It failed, but of course that didn’t prevent the Austrian gentleman from trying again in 1930. Still, all that’s history, as well as quite another story.

The Nepali low on Everest high

The world’s highest altitude party has been taking place at least for the last week at ‘Sagarmatha’ or ‘Chomolungma’s base camp in Nepal, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Tenzing-Hillary climb on May 29, 1953, and clearly the best website commemorating the high is http://www.nepalitimes.com. Editor Kunda Dixit’s wonderful spoof on the occasion is so lifelike, that it reckons the recognition of a master satirist. The photo of Tenzing Norgay carrying the tall and lanky Ed Hillary on his shoulders must be the stuff of every Nepali — and Indian — dream if only because it answers the question of Who Climbed First. Until you see the creditline beneath the photo. It says ‘Imaginary Pictures, Inc,’ clearly a giveaway to the fact that the photo has been morphed. Still, Dixit’s piece says it all. About the repressed emotions in the hearts of the Nepalis who saw their holy mountain not only being climbed first by an outsider, but whose people also insisted on investing all the power and glory in the Burra Sahib, while poor Tenzing Norgay — of indistinct nationality, even he couldn’t decide whether he was Indian or Nepali — was reduced to the dismissive status of ‘‘only’’ an Sherpa. Of course, Dixit actually doesn’t say any of this in his story. Only, the plural usage of web expletives $#*&% is quite enough.

Norgay or Norway, what’s in a name?

To think, then, that all the sound and fury about honouring Edmund Hillary in the city last week (his immortal words to fellow New Zealander George Lowe when he returned from Mount Everest was, ‘‘Well George, we knocked the bastard off’’) would have rubbed off on the high priests of the New Delhi Municipal Corporation. Especially when it was none other than the NDMC that was responsible for all the work that went into the road-naming ceremonies in honour of Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. So even as Delhi’s Chief Minister Shiela Dixit spoke so warmly and eloquently about the two mountaineer ‘‘icons’’ and what they meant for an India only newly independent, and principal of the Laxmibai Nagar Navyug School Uma Tomar ably performed her role as master of ceremonies, NDMC secretary Sanjeev Kumar was a bit of an embarrassment.

Giving the vote of thanks on the occasion, Kumar twice miscalled ‘‘Tenzing Norgay’’ as ‘‘Tenzing Norway’’. You wondered if you had misheard, or perhaps it was the heat. Oh no, but Kumar definitely had the Scandinavian nation in mind, rather than the Tibetan High Lama who in the 1930s changed Tenzing’s name from Namgyal Wangdi to Tenzing Norgay (‘‘norgay’’ meaning ‘‘fortunate’’). Still, Kumar is said to belong to the IAS, the steel-frame that runs the nation, and which we know can never be wrong.