As sycophancy flowed generously in New York last evening, bouncing off the old world charm of the Waldorf Astoria, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was forced to bring his inimitable wit to the table. To rescue the creme de la creme of NRIs from the after-effects of Ambassador Lalit Mansingh’s extra-exuberance.Mansingh, a Foreign Secretary until last year, lanched a 25-minute-long fusillade devoted to those qualities in the Prime Minister which, he said, came straight from Chanakya’s famous treatise on statecraft, the Arthashastra.That’s when Fate, cruelly, pitched in. Citing chapter, verse in Sanskrit, even as the audience shifted impatiently from one foot to another, Mansingh decided it was time to wrap up with lines from a poem—of course, written by Atal Behari Vajpayee.Except, that midway through the poem, he forgot the lines.First, he repeated a sentence (daoon pe lagaata hoon/I challenge everybody) at least a couple of times, but memory would not return. Then he scrambled for notes but couldn’t find the appropriate page. By this time, parts of the audience began to rudely heckle him. At last, it was all over.So when Vajpayee finally took the microphone, after another speech by External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha eulogizing the NRI community for their contribution to Mother India, the audience was stretched to fever-pitch anticipation.He did not disappoint them.‘‘There is a saying in the Arthashastra,’’ began the Prime Minister, ‘‘or at least there should have been a saying in the Arthashastra, that ministers should not speak for such lengths of time. At least not in front of their Prime Minister. Or the country will be faced with serious difficulty (Desh ko gehra sankat hoga.)’’It was just like the good old days, the Prime Minister in full flow and an appreciative audience roaring with laughter. Clearly, it was something in the New York air, which Vajpayee later admitted to sampling for the last 40 years, which had brought it on.Choosing his words and his targets with great care, Vajpayee then turned the knife. He first exonerated Yashwant Sinha, saying he had asked him to speak in front of NRI America because even though he may known them in his capacity as Finance Minister, he wanted them to know Sinha in his new incarnation of Foreign minister.‘‘Yeh videsh neeti mein naye adhyay ka Shri Ganesh kar rahe hain (He is opening a new chapter in Indian foreign policy),’’ said Vajpayee. Then added, ‘‘But what can I say about the Ambassador who forgot my own poem right in front of me!’’But, the Prime Minister wasn’t done yet. As his mood shifted from the jovial to the searching, Vajpayee spoke of the contradictions between the overwhelming economic achievements of the NRI community and that of Indians at home. ‘‘I see New Yorkers going to work very early every morning, they work so hard. But why doesn’t this happen at home?’’ he wondered.Only to provide the answer, himself. ‘‘Yeh netaon ki kamzori hai (This is a weakness of the political leadership),’’ he said, adding that he must also share responsibility for this. But the people of India could easily change this, by changing the government.‘‘Loktantra hai, satta badal sakti hai (This is a democracy, the government can change),’’ he said. It was a warning to which all at the high table, in New York and back home, were clearly paying close attention.
