Yesterday, when I saw Narendra Modi and Barack Obama take a stroll and then sit down for a cup of coffee and tea at the Hyderabad House, New Delhi, I was particularly amused at the kind of guessing that was going around among the media analysts and anchors. They are having serious discussions on nuclear deal, said one. On another channel an anchor was trying to dramatize the importance of one-to-one discussion between the two heads of democracies, and on almost every other channel that I could sift, all kinds of guess work was being attempted. While no one knows what really was discussed, but if what Obama shared later saying that they exchanged notes among other things on how much sleep they get, than I think it was a simple stroll that was designed to give a different impression to the viewing public. In simple words, an image building exercise or optic as they now say. This reminds me of a similar discussion between two batsman from India (in a Test match with West Indies) when they walked to the middle of the crease and stood there talking. This was way back when I was a student in the school. You remember those days when we used to listen to ball-by-ball commentary of a Test Match on the radio. The commentators were saying that probably the batsmen were working out a strategy they need to adopt in facing the fast bowlers and so on. One of them then said OK, listeners. I will speak to the batsmen in the evening, and tell you tomorrow as to what they were talking about. Next day, I was curious to know what had transpired between the two batsmen. One of the commentators finally said: Listeners, I had promised to talk to the batsmen. Well, I did. They told me they were drawn by an elegant and graceful female spectator sitting in the front row. They were talking about her....
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 11:13:09 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015