When I view our beloved Bharat Mata from the remoteness of a faraway land, a comical absurdity about our politics becomes painfully obvious. I am still in that Swiss village of peridot meadows and autumn mists from where I sent you last week’s column and because I have been here for a while, I missed the celebrations of the Prime Minister’s 75th birthday. So, it was only last week that I caught the many interviews our Home Minister gave to our ‘independent’ private TV channels in which he sang paeans of praise to his old friend and political comrade, Narendra Modi.

In one of these interviews the Home Minister was asked to name the one quality about Modi that distinguishes him from prime ministers of yore and his reply both astonished and embarrassed me. He said, “You have probably never seen a prime minister of India who when he is seated on the stage at an important meeting never gets up to ‘freshen himself’.” Those of you who understand Hindi know that ‘fresh hona’ in Hinglish means going to the lavatory. It is indeed remarkable that a man in his mid-seventies should have such control over the natural functions of his body, but should this be considered his most outstanding quality? His great gift to India? Would it not have been better for

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