Of Bloody Marys and maple cured ham

The Mimosa (sparkling wine with orange juice, for the uninitiated) began getting warm as the election temperature rose. The Bloody Marys (complete with pepper, tabasco, celery sticks and cherry tomatoes) were already hot. The cutouts of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, that greeted visitors at the gate of the US Embassy, grinned even wider. And, you can say this for the Americans: Nobody does elections like they do. Amid the fragrance of the maple cured ham, cheeseburgers and pancakes, what would have been a celebratory breakfast for US Ambassador in New Delhi Richard Verma (who is a Democrat nominee) became funereal, and Verma swallowed as he announced with a brave face, that Indo-US ties will continue to go from strength to strength, regardless of which government was in power. You could almost see him barking at his staff: ‘Start packing up’.
   
Many Indian political figures had been invited to the lawns of Roosevelt House, the official residence of the American Ambassador in New Delhi that was designed by Jackie Kennedy. The lawn itself was draped in the colours of the Stars and Stripes: Red, white and blue. Many takeaways including hats to keep the heat at bay were available. As state after state, from which Clinton had hopes fell, many left but many stayed, despite the clear instruction on the invitation, that the party was only till 11 am. It started at 7 am.
 
“The same scene will be playing out in every US Embassy across the world” murmured a staffer as Verma wandered through the crowd, looking increasingly strained. “We are here today, not to celebrate an individual winner, or to side with a particular candidate, but to celebrate the American democratic election process as a whole, to witness that process in action. While there were certainly many firsts in this very eventful and hard-fought election campaign, the end result is the same as it has been before: free and fair elections followed by acceptance and respect for the results” Verma said. He will have to resign. The new regime will take time to install. When the Republicans were last in power the two Ambassadors who held the fort for the larger part of the Republican presidency were Robert Blackwill (2001-2003) and David Mulford (2003-2009). The two were chalk and cheese. Blackwill was mad about the movies, and had no patience or time for those who disagreed with him and described the Indian economy as being ‘flat as a chapati’. Mulford, after a sterling career in investment banking — Credit Suisse First Boston — had come to India laden with Treasury experience (he was assistant to Nicholas Brady, former US Treasury Secretary and was involved in evolving the Brady Plan that replaced the region’s commercial bank debt with tradeable securities, reopened the international capital markets to Latin America and set the scene for the free market reforms of the 1990s). He was the ultimate gentleman.
 
So, who will it be this time? Hard to say. But in the sunny lawns of Roosevelt House, TV food anchors Rocky and Mayur exchanged wisdom about US elections as knowledgeably as Indian journalists. Another election, over. A new Trump? We’ll have to see.