Hilarious!
http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column ... it_1741060
Why SM Krishna’s too sexy for his suit
DNA / Indrajit Hazra / Saturday, September 15, 2012 10:00 IST
Did you see foreign minister SM Krishna in Pakistan during his three-day visit to the country last week? Ecce Homo! By which I mean ‘Behold the Man!’, of course — andnot what Holmes in an episode of the BBC series Sherlock deduced a man with “tinted eyelashes, clear signs of taurine cream around the frown lines... those clubber’s eyes...underwear visible above the waistline, very visible, very particular brand” to be.
No. Krishna’s Cauvery Kleins were certainly not visible above his waistline. But there he was, caught especially in one photograph, like a flamenco dancer just before whipping up Pakistani foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar in a gypsy-Shia frenzy. There he is in the picture in his Michelangelo’s David pose, but very well covered in an impeccable black suit under which a spiffy white shirt that’s held together by a sky blue tie. His flawless poshwear actually manages to take one’s eyes away from the dead squirrel on his head.
Krishna is looking rather challengingly — the way flamenco dancers do — at the approaching vision in a purple salwar-kameez. Going by the photograph, I would say he’s looking probably at Rabbani Khar’s hands, perhaps her exquisitely manicured fingers that hover before her in a gesture yet to be made. While Rabbani Khar is walking towards Krishna in a gorgeous pair of stilts that pass off as shoes, our man is balanced perfectly on his own set of high heels that make him just a wee bit shorter than his smashing host.
Imagine now if it was the usual ‘Indo-Pak’ suspects meeting in one of those dreary photo-ops. All attention would have swivelled away from the seductive razzmatazz to prickly suit-issues like Mumbai attacks, Hafiz Saeed and that old disputed sweater, Cashmere. Which, in hindsight, points to the sheer genius of Manmohan Singh, the boy from Gah in Pakistan, choosing Krishna as India’s foreign minister. Not only is Krishna as a southern man emotionally unresponsive towards post-Partition Pakistan-India tear’n’neck-jerkers, but as my (Facebook) friend Malavika Sangghvi quoted the man saying in her Midday column last week: “[My] passion in life is fashion designing... Yes, I design my own suits, and can show you many sketches of designs I have done of other garments in the past.” So here’s an Indian foreign minister finally who doesn’t put all his eggs in one basket.
Last week’s rendezvous wasn’t the usual India-Pakistan foreign ministers’ meeting. It was a subcontinental take on the John Travolta-Uma Thurman moment in Pulp Fiction just before they break into their iconic jig on the dance floor to Chuck Berry’s ‘You Never Can Tell’. I certainly can’t see Dinesh Singh and Sardar Asif Ahmad Ali, foreign ministers of India and Pakistan the year Quentin Tarantino’s movie came out, managing to hold Krishna’s leaning-back-on-the-heels-and-left-hand-above-the-pecker pose and make the air in the room crackle with cross-border pheromones.
Not everyone, however, seems to have appreciated the benefits of this charm offensive. Being critical of two foreign ministers dolling up, while they should be red-lining crucial India-Pakistan joint statements and banging out ways of resolving difference, misses the strategic brilliance that both sides unleashed to maintain status quo without being seen to be maintaining status quo.
Behind the glam and ritualised erotic display in Islamabad — far more crackling than the other ritualised erotic display put up by Indian Border Security Force and Pakistan Rangers dudes every evening at the Wagah checkpost — some no-frills progress was made. A new, liberalised visa agreement was signed between the two countries, and ferry and air services between Pakistan and India were given the go-ahead again. Even the media, so cynical about government functionaries wearing fancy clothes, seemed to have taken “the strong commitment to fight terrorism in an effective and comprehensive manner” that the two model foreign ministers had agreed upon without a pinch of salt this time.
As a diversionary tactic, setting up SM ‘Tennis Envy’ Krishna and Hina ‘Your Kashmir Or Mine?’ Rabbani Khar together as part of high-level Track 1 diplomacy was a masterstroke by both governments. Now to ensure that this isn’t followed up too quickly by a visit by Manmohan Singh to Pakistan. What a Fall Collection, my countrymen that would be.
PS Unlike the Manmohan Singh or Asif Ali Zardari governments, this column, alas, is unable to last its full term for reasons that have to do with global geo-politics. But a month of writing MPTK has been much fun (for me). We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when... but thanks for all the pav.
Indrajit Hazra is a Delhi-based novelist and journalist
to see the pic in question:http://epaper.dnaindia.com/epaperimages ... ain-12.pdf
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