Zzzzz!

Post-lunch sessions in Parliament tend to have a soporific effect. And our members of Parliament, including senior Cabinet ministers sometimes, do become victims of this. Last week, during the n-deal debate, Heavy Industries Minister Santosh Mohan Deb, sitting right in front, was seen dozing off. It took Sonia Gandhi to help retrieve the situation at an important debate for the government. She prodded Home Minister Shivraj Patil to do something about this embarrassing sight. Groping for ideas, Patil resorted to tapping his pencil—first lightly and then furiously—but it had no effect on Deb. All this drew the attention of cabinet colleague A R Antulay, who was sitting to Deb’s right. Realising that the pencil tapping was a result of the party high command’s intervention, he took a more direct route and jolted Deb into wakefulness.