Is there a man or woman alive, who hasn’t been scarred by the Report Card? Is there anyone who hasn’t experienced that sinking feeling upon receiving it, of a giant vacuum cleaner having suddenly sucked one’s duodenum right out of the digestive system? Ask Napoleon’s father. The emperor had, apparently, met his waterloo long before that famed encounter with Wellington — that is, in the assessments of his scholastic progress at school. Historians now believe that his habit of tucking his right hand into his waistcoat can be directly traced to the fact that he, as a schoolboy, had to routinely hide his report card from his father’s angry gaze. But all this is neither here nor there. What should be of more urgent concern to us is the psychological trauma our own prime minister is going through because every Indian — from L K Advani to the gas-balloon seller on Marina beach — now believes it is his/her constitutional duty to issue a scorecard on Manmohan Singh’s performance as PM. I met up with him at 7, Race Course Road, just as the poison darts were flying in thick and fast. Me: Namaskar, PMji, so it is celebration time, right. One year and all? PMji (distractedly surveying his table overflowing with cards): Namaskar, namaskar.Kindly sit down. Me: You certainly seem to have got a whole lot of anniversary greetings. People seem to be celebrating your one year in office with enthusiasm. PMji (sighing so deeply that some of the cards on his table took flight): You call these greeting cards? Look, look at this one.(the one he held up appeared to bear an awful lot of red marks on it.) Me (sympathetically): Arrey, this looks like a school report card. PMji: You know I have never, NEVER, in my entire academic life had a report card with red marks on it. In school, my teacher thought I was a bright student. In college, professors encouraged me with good grades. At Oxford and Cambridge, they even gave me distinctions.Now.(words failed him) Me: Must be awfully tough. PMji (coming close to a snort): Tough? You say tough? I say it is absolutely unbearable. Read these and you’ll know what I mean. It was a small postcard from a little village in West Bengal and it had the words — “Demoted. Go back to Class One” printed neatly in black ink. Another had the word “Unsatisfactory” repeated 25 times all over it. Me (beginning to discern the depth of his discomfiture): Why don’t you assess your colleagues instead? This way, you can place the blame for shoddy performances at the door of those who deserve to be exposed. PMji (sitting upright, as if struck by lightning): Ssshhh! Don’t even whisper it here. I did try that approach but aborted the mission midway. The defence mantri told me that he would send in the army if I dared give him bad marks, the rail mantri conveyed — with the aid of several expletives I may add — that he would empty a whole pail of buttermilk over my head. The foreign affairs mantri threatened to haul me up before the international court of justice, the environment minister said he would despatch me to the forests of oblivion, the human resource mantri swore he would toxify me if I breathed a word, the agriculture mantri.(PMji by this stage had reached the point of emotional exhaustion). Me: This is preposterous! With colleagues like this, you don’t need enemies! PMji (carrying on in a monotone as if in a daze): Then I thought I would assess my own performance like a true Gandhian. I wanted to be fair so I awarded this government 6 on 10. A balanced assessment that admits some scope for improvement. But even this created a storm. Me: But Soniaji must have been happy with the 10 on 10 you gave her. PMji (wincing): So I thought. But Ambica Soni phoned in to tell me that I should have given Soniaji 20 out of 10 for Soniaji’s marvellous, wonderful, fantastic performance. Arrey, how could I explain to Ambicaji that such a mark would have failed the test of mathematics, even if it passes the test of servility? Just then PMji’s phone rang. As he spoke to the caller, I notice him looking demoralised with every passing second. By the time the call ended he was decidedly pale. PMji: That was Gursharan Kaur. She gave me just 3 on 10 for my year in office. She believes I could do much better. She especially wants me to bring gas prices down or face a dharna that she herself will lead to my door. He pulled out a handkerchief, mopped his brow and looked as if he was about to howl into it. I wished him a happy anniversary and beat a hasty retreat, leaving the poor man to cope with his report card blues as best he could.
