Whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on, sang American rock and roll idol Jerry Lee Lewis in 1964. Not to be confused with the zany comedian Jerry Lewis, who was joined at the hip with the romantic singer / actor Dean Martin. I thought of this old hit song because of a whole lotta huggin’ and winkin’ goin’ on at the present time in India’s national politics. First off Rahul Gandhi, after his touted ‘kick ass’ speech in the Lok Sabha, walks up unannounced to the Prime Minister sitting in the Treasury benches, across the well of the House, and proceeds to hug Modi, his head resting touchingly on the startled PM’s shoulder, catching him completely off guard.
Ecstatic Congress Party faithful hail Rahul's taking the Prime Minister for a huggy pillow a master stroke of left field statesmanship. Not satisfied with this, the young scion of the Gandhi dynasty proceeds to essay a triumphant wink as if to say, ‘Whaddaya think of that, guys?’ Naturally, the BJP party pracharaks took a dim view, trashing the whole drama as a laughable farce, enacted by a man-child attempting to score cheap brownie points on the idiot box, an aptly named medium. The ruling party characterising this as nothing more than a futile exercise in naïve political chicanery. Not exactly in those words but that was pretty much the kernel of it. The PM decided to treat Rahul Gandhi's strange antics with the lofty disdain it deserved.
Soon after, the young Congress Party President was caught winking again at a party rally in Jaipur, leading many to wonder if he was suffering from some form of involuntary tick. In which case he is more to be pitied than censured.
More recently, former Indian opening batsman, now Congressman and non-stop chatterbox, Navjyot Singh Sidhu lands up in Pakistan for his cricket buddy turned Prime Minister Imran Khan’s swearing-in ceremony. Sidhu should have known this ill-advised visit could only have resulted in him being sworn at. Not in Pakistan, but back home in India. The parvenu politician from Punjab is famed for not being able to open his mouth without putting his foot in it. A rare form of foot-in-mouth disease.
Not content with merely attending the ceremony as inconspicuously as such a fraught and delicate situation demanded, the erstwhile dour blocker turned sixer hitter, decided to warmly hug the Pakistani army chief. What was he thinking? Naturally, all hell broke loose and a fusillade of invective was hurled at the garrulous Sardar from all concerned barring members of his own party, who didn’t quite know how to defend the indefensible. PM Imran Khan was likely having a quiet chuckle at Sidhu’s disquiet. Clearly, his deceptive outswinger had Sidhu playing down the wrong line.
Navjyot’s defence was feeble. ‘My dear friend, it is just a normal human reaction. Will you show your back if someone offers the hand of friendship?’ he asks disingenuously. He should have been wary of an iron fist in the velvet glove seeing as he was embracing the Pakistani general. Adding fuel to the fire, he was quite unapologetic and felt that his opponents were being small minded in not wanting to change the narrative and optics of India's relations with its perennial foe.
Now everyone knows that our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, is himself not averse to a spot of hugging though winking is not his forte. We have seen him hugging world leaders on his many trips all over the world. Leaders in Russia and the Eastern Bloc, not to mention the Middle East sheikhdoms - they are all big on hugging, and oftentimes, kissing as well. However, those in Western Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States are more circumspect. A firm and frosty shake of the hand being more their preferred style of greeting. Nevertheless, Donald Trump and Narendra Modi did briefly entwine at the White House. Indian leaders have tended to veer between the austere, dignified Namaste and the more carefree embrace, depending on the occasion. They say Nehru was a hugger, and we can see where his great-grandson acquired the habit from.
Still on hugging, can we forget the prize distribution ceremony after the World Cup football earlier this year in Moscow? The charming President of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovi? was the ultimate scene stealer. Donning the Croatian colours, she hugged Vladimir Putin, Emmanuel Macron, all the officials, referees and every single player from France and Croatia, on an evening when it poured with joyous rain. Croatia lost to France, but that didn’t dampen Kolinda’s rain dance. It is rumoured that many of the players were so excited about the tight hug from the attractive Croatian head of state, they went back in line for a repeat! Others, more cynically inclined, opined that it was an election stunt aimed at the people of her country. The good lady President, however, didn’t give a toss. Good on her!
Strangely all this winking furore in India started when a Malayali teenager, Priya Varrier, essayed a gorgeous wink at her boyfriend in a film that went madly viral on YouTube, garnering millions of views. The wink generated a great deal of controversy on social media because it happened on Valentine’s Day, thus giving an opening for religious bhakts to go ballistic over an innocent gesture. Sometimes I feel we are a nation singularly without a self-deprecating sense of humour. The British ruled us for 200 years. Didn't we learn anything from them? Anyhow, for once a fresh-faced young girl led the way with a glint in her eye, and a young political leader Rahul Gandhi, followed her example. Only he got his timing horribly wrong. Cameras, Rahul, cameras!
Stop press: A self-styled godman in Assam is cooling his heels in jail for claiming to cure women’s ailments, including marital discord, by hugging and kissing his ‘patients’, invoking the blessings of Lord Vishnu! It’s a pandemic.
