Vajpayee to sail with Prince Putin and Tsar Bush

And so Vajpayee, along with 42 others — led by George Bush of America, Jacques Chirac of France, Tony Blair of Britian, Hu Jintao of China and, of course, Putin as host — will climb onto Silver Whisper — a three-storey barge — on the evening of May 31 and sail down the mighty Neva towards the mouth of the Gulf of Finland.

There’s a multi-course dinner at hand, of course, as well as high tea at 11 pm. Meanwhile, as the sun refuses to set on the famous White Nights of northern Russia, Putin has already done his bit by ordering St Pete’s Geophysics Observatory to keep the rain away by seeding the clouds on high with chemicals.

The gala tour of Russia’s most beautiful city will really begin on May 30, with a visit to the Tsar’s summer palace at Peterhof as well as to the greatest museum in the world, the Hermitage. Here, Prime Minister Vajpayee is expected to donate an amount to bring out of the Hermitage’s closet a collection of coins, jewellery and sculptures from the Kushan period to the Pratihara and Chalukya dynasties. These are likely to be accorded the status of a permanent exhibit.

But it is between the fun and the frolic that the PM will find time to conduct the serious business of state. Such as a bilateral with Chinese president Hu Jintao, an encounter that will set the stage for his visit to China later in June. As well as meetings with President Putin himself and Jacques Chirac of France, both of whom are not fully comfortable with the beginning of the US unipolar era. But with Bush finding little time to party — which is why his presence in St Petersburg is likely to be short — a bilateral with the US President has still not been confirmed.

Still, Vajpayee’s multi-nation tour really starts with Germany on May 27, where over the next three days in Berlin and Munich he meets the creme de la creme of the country’s political and business community. And although Germany was pretty much an ally of the alternative French-led opposition to the US war against Iraq, Berlin and New Delhi have privately moved much closer to the view that they could easily participate in a Washington-led rebuilding of Iraq.

As if Germany and Russia over five days are not enough to fill up the senses, the Prime Minister will fly Air India One on June 1 to Lausanne, Switzerland, from where a quick hop across Lake Geneve leads you to the French village of Evian. This is where Chirac has gathered his colleagues from the world’s First Club of G-8, as well as invited the Second World’s G-8, to help round off the edges of the rich and powerful.

Nations like India, China, Brazil, Mexico as well as Algeria, South Africa, Senegal and Nigeria are expected to attend, to debate ‘‘new threats and challenges’’ to the world after Iraq. The air will be thick with rarefied soundings on weapons of mass destruction and non-proliferation as well as proposals to build the trans-Atlantic political and economic divide.

In bilaterals and joint meetings, New Delhi will privately exult that there is no General Musharraf of Pakistan to cramp its style. For a change, India can join the comity of nations without being tied to the tiresome subcontinent with a ball and a chain. For the third time in a week, New Delhi will be celebrating its coming-out party into a brave, new world.