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“Sushmaji held my hand yesterday and asked ‘beta, why are you angry with me? What did I do to you?’ I said ‘I am not angry. I respect you.’ Then I looked into her eyes and said ‘I am only speaking the truth.’ She turned her face away, unable to look into my eyes.”
This dramatic dialogue isn’t from a Bollywood movie or a Hindi soap opera. This came from Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi. It was hardly surprising that he was geared up to take on the government in a war of words on Wednesday. He was at his oratory best when he began to counter External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who had in her response in the Lalit Modi issue dragged Gandhi’s entire family, and even got mother Sonia on her feet in anger.
This dramatic dialogue isn’t from a Bollywood movie or a Hindi soap opera. This came from Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi. It was hardly surprising that he was geared up to take on the government in a war of words on Wednesday. He was at his oratory best when he began to counter External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who had in her response in the Lalit Modi issue dragged Gandhi’s entire family, and even got mother Sonia on her feet in anger.
The penultimate day of the mostly washed-out monsoon session of Parliament was seen as quite entertaining by some: Political heavyweights like Swaraj, Gandhi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, among others, made fiery speeches, took personal jibes and made forthright accusations.
As he doggedly made his points in his typical raspy-voiced Hindi, talking about his recent favourite things, such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s absence from Parliament, Swaraj’s method of ‘humanitarian work’, former Indian Premier League commissioner Lalit Modi and corruption, Gandhi seemed at home in the chaos of the House.
Many might have wondered about the reason behind this aggressive, emphatic version of Rahul Gandhi.
A photograph captured by The Telegraph might just reveal the secret. No, it was not a magic spell or ‘How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere: The Secrets of Good Communication’ by Larry King. It was a simple, white, crisp, caps-locked sheet of pointers. It’s difficult to say who might have actually written that impassioned monologue, but the sheet was definitely a major source.
Politicians reading out of cue cards is neither new nor surprising. But what made Gadhi’s sheet stand out was the fact that all Hindi words were written in the Roman (English) script.
People on social media were quick to spot this and the Roman script was soon being debated over widely. Take, for instance, the key points written on the sheet: “Log PM Modi ko sunna chhate hain, woh unki rai janna chahte hain.” (People want to hear PM Modi; they want to listen to his views).
There was a neat label with each such pointer: ‘Modigate par’ (On Modigate), ‘Vyapam par’ (On Vyapam), for instance.
While having English words for Hindi doesn’t look like a big deal, the essence of the points did seem unusual. Gandhi surely does not need cue cards for things that he speaks on so often, it is argued.
Rahul’s ‘cheat sheet’, as it was widely referred to, created quite a buzz on social media, after The Telegraph photo went viral. Indian Tweeples (users of microblogging site Twitter) aka ‘experts’ began analysing everything from content to handwriting, drawing up conclusions about why he needed the ‘cheat sheet’.
Gandhi had faced similar ribbing on twitter when he was photographed referring to his phone while writing a condolence message for Nepal earthquake victims.
