Samata with Mamata

It’s not as if he had gone to battle unprepared. He had pored over several volumes of Freud and all ten of Sven Jurgen’s How to read a woman’s mind in five easy stages. People had always insisted that a Jayalalitha was ten times more difficult than a Mamata but he, Fernandes, begged to differ. As far as he was concerned, the Puratchi Thalaivi in Chennai was theembodiment of sweet reasonableness when compared to the sharp-as-mustard Didi of Kolkatta. He suddenly remembered the Baskin Robbin ice-cream that Jaya had specially ordered for him on one of his secret missions to Chennai and a deep sigh shook his frame.

Where? Where did I go wrong with Mamata, he asked himself for the nth time. Being an introspective sort of person, he went over details of the 90-minute Calcutta mission. His manner was impeccable as far as he could make out, and conformed to the advice that Myra Beckenburg had doled out in her classic work, Modern Etiquette. He consulted the volume again.

Communication, she warned, was more complex than you think. How true. How true, sighed Fernandes. Never drop in without phoning, she had also said.

But I did fix an appointment, I did, Fernandes whined to nobody in particular. Then he remembered something and froze. That Myra lady had also struck a cautionary note: anyone who phones too much may seem too eager, too pushy, too anxious to setthe agenda. Perhaps that was where I went wrong, said Fernandes to himself sadly.

Perhaps I could have offset that by taking her a gift or something, he went on, still searching for the reasons for his reversal. Not chocolates, of course. That Myra woman had specifically warned against presenting chocolates to someone who may be watching her weight. But perhaps a 10-kilo box of assorted vegetables, or something like that?

His eye wandered to the mirror. Hmmmm, what about my appearance? A trifle shabby, what, this kurta-pyjama. No, that can’t be it. Going by the way she dressed, Mamata clearly favoured the anti-establishment look and I’m sure she wouldn’t have had any objection to the clothes I wore for our meeting, never mind what the Myra woman says about the need to put effort into one’s dressing.

Now, let’s see. Myra maintains that “it’s always good manners to give praise where it’s due”. But that’s just what I did, squawked Fernandes.

What’s that I told the waiting media people? “I have notcome to tell her to withdraw her resignation from the coordination committee. I have come here to offer her a Cabinet berth on behalf of the Prime Minister. The Union Cabinet needs an assertive and dynamic leader like Mamata.” Surely that should have pleased her, it had such a nice ring to it, said Fernandes sorrowfully.

He went over their conversation, word by word. Myra’s manual had a whole section on the art of conversation and she had specifically said that direct questions are a complete no-no. “Most direct questions are rude. For example, you don’t ask how old a person is,” she had written. So I never asked her any questions like that, reasoned Fernandes, I didn’t even ask her whether she planned to drop Vajpayee like a hot potato, although I was dying to know.

His mind drifted to what the manual had said about the four crucial stages that made a good conversation a great conversation: First, remember that the essence of making conversation is to give one’s total attention to what is being said.Second, don’t be over-personal but still allow the other person to reveal herself. Third, look attentive and then say something flattering.

Fourth, remember to pepper the conversation with “I understand” and “You are right”. Maybe I didn’t put enough you-are-rights into our exchange, Fernandes concluded, totally heart-broken.

Just then the doorbell rang. A battery of specialists waited outside a hairdresser, a fashion designer, a Bengali poet and a tabla teacher. They had been sent by the Prime Minister to impart to his Union Defence Minister formal training in the art of turning on the charm. After all, what’s the use of a raksha mantri if he cannot save the Prime Minister?