Chhota sa break. Don’t go away

THERE’S nothing that we Delhiites fear more than our searing, dusty summers, when the world is instantly rendered into a giant toaster, when everything seems to be near melting point and half the sand of the Thar comes in to gild the ceiling fan. But we are not complaining. This is not one long whinge-and-whine column about how hard done we are by being located in the heart of the great plains, so far from the sea, so close to the desert.

This is a celebration of the good things that summer brings. New flavours of icecreams, mangoes by the truck full, the sweetest melons this side of the Northwest Frontier, leechis in moveable, rose-tinted mounds, cherries packed tight like shiny button in cardboard boxes... and, yes, most of all, low pollution levels. While carbon dioxide levels and suspended particulate matter readings may hold steady, political particulate matter has this miraculous tendency to clear up in this season.

All told, it is quite obvious the tranquillity that descends upon the Capital the moment the mercury ascends. And the reason is not far to seek. Summer is the season when politicians, that egregious tribe whose singular purpose in life seems to be to destroy the happiness in ours, make good their escape to happier climes and relatively dust-free environs. At the moment, the red and blue light wallahs, who clog up the air waves with their gobbledegook and the streets with their Black Cats, have relocated themselves in London and New York, Washington and Hong Kong, as the case may be, giving us a much needed — and much appreciated — respite.

It’s like that old joke about lawyers. Why does Calcutta have more pollution and Delhi more politicians? Because Calcutta had first choice. Being the Capital of the country may have its advantages — we get some extra stone monuments, for instance, and a special mention in the Lonely Planet travel guide, for instance — but we also have to pay an unacceptably high price for the privilege. Every horse trader, windbag, backstabber, double dealer, also gets to be located here because this is where all the horse trading, back stabbing, double dealing, wind bagging is supposed to be done, officially and constitutionally speaking.

Logically, then, every Delhiite must watch this summer migration with elation in their hearts, perhaps even queue up at airports, bouquet in hand, to add to the ceremony of departure. Being of such a persuasion, I am therefore extremely puzzled by the propensity of some newspaper columnists to complain about how elected representatives seem to disappear every summer. The implication is that the country will fall apart with all its stalwarts away. Nothing, in fact, is farther from the truth. Do you get Tehelka like scams in the height of summer? Do riots break out when temperatures hit the region of 45 plus? Are mosques, temples, churches desecrated when the hot winds ride in like Timur’s hordes from the west with curses under its onion breath?

Therefore, I would like to tell all those stuffed shirts who huff and puff about VVIP movement, wave chastising fingers at departing backs, and calculate how much the country’s exchequer is losing by way of providing a bunch of its ministers and their families regular, two-week halts, at the Dorchester, that they have got it all wrong. A break from this lot is worth every paisa we spend on their perambulations.

So what if the prime minister is away on knee surgery, and his PMO is kneeling outside his hospital door in Mumbai? What’s the big deal about the home minister being away from home, or the minister of broadcasting, casting her net broadly in the most exciting places — Cannes one week, Hollywood, the next? Why should we deny the finance minister the joys of nursing himself (if not the economy) into recovery, under ministering hands in Washington? And the communications minister, is it not his job to be testing the telephony between Atlanta and Hajipur? About the health minister, he is only attending to the world’s health by expanding on the dangers of AIDS in very healthy environs — Geneva, no less.

As for defence cum external affairs Jaswant Singh, it must be said in his defence that he has every right to go external, just as the minister of law and company affairs is legally empowered to locate himself in London.

Don’t know about you, but I am of the opinion that the greatest job these worthies can render the country is to stay wherever they are and take their time in coming back. Here’s hoping they are enjoying their break, because we certainly are. We are enjoying their break, I mean.

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