America comes again

The Americans come again

Hillary is back in India just in months of her boss visiting and acclaiming India as a great emerging power. Clearly, those who matter in the US, know it too well, any recovery in USA is at best temporary. The current generation in the US is not that of builders. You need a different stuff for that. A crop grows on a particular soil in a particular season. The maintainers follow and those who reap or enjoy are basically the destroyers of the crop. One man cannot don all three hats. It is only God who can don all three hats at the same time, of the builder or creator, maintainer and destroyer and that is probably why we believe in the Triumverate of Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh.

The US economy is in shambles, and the nation lacks the builders, and needs partners to boost it. India could be one such enduring partner. So she is here again. A wee bit of praise for India, and an askance criticism of Pakistan, does the trick for the emotional Indian, willing to work over time for American attention, and our media, which drools over such slices of journalism.

But regardless of what Hilary’s covert or overt intentions of her India visit were, it seems, she has an Indian mother who seeks vindication in feeding her well. Her full cheeks at least bear eloquent testimony to that.

I had a personal theory that those you are glib of tongue are gaunt intellectually but both Hillary and Obama consistently defy my self-proclaimed stereotype.

I heard Obama address our Parliament and even wrote about it. I also heard his address to the people of Ireland, where one of his ancestors were traced to. The cliché notwithstanding, his speeches were extremely well informed flawlessly rendered without demur, and with an articulation nothing less than immaculate.

But while extolling strengths of this great civilization – it is always safer to call India that than a country or nation - the undertone of Obama’s speech was clear. Do business with USA, and do those businesses that create jobs in the USA.

How many Indian politicians including our pedagogic PM Manmohan Singh, can address the US Senators without a shred of paper in hand, and solicit business the manner in which Obama and Hillary have been repeatedly doing. Sometimes I feel, a pussy footed nation of pacifists that we are, making ourselves economically strategic partners of powerful nations could be the only strategy to position an economically resurgent India at a pedestal of strength and also and this may also be our antidote to terror exporting Pakistani nuisance.

I remember a friend of mine who was posted in a Latin country describe the non descript encounter that he had with the President of India when she visited that Latin Country with an extended family in tow enjoying a state sponsored free jaunt, and of course an official entourage of flunkies that could put the erstwhile Maharajas to shame. And all this not withstanding her interaction with the Indian diaspora was most uninspiring and insipid and all of them there walked out bewildered how India works with such lack-lustre, nay, lost and seemingly without purpose politicians.