Chinese whispers

You haven't heard this yet, have you? But how could you, this news was never published. Last week at the Taj Palace, the still night was broken by First Lady Peng Liyuan stirring in her sleep in the Tata Suite, high above the other rooms. Her husband, the President of China, was snoring gently, having had a great repast of Gujarati delicacies and then an hour or so of poring over Gandhi literature. After his eyelids began to droop, he had sunk into the embrace of the Posture Pedic mattress.

"Darling," whispered Madame Peng (Disclaimer: Because the Chinese are inscrutable in what they say and mean, all conversations have been rendered into language easily accessible to our readers). "Yes?" whispered back the President. He was loath to turn over to this wife's side and break his journey to the Ultimate Land of Pure Dreams that the oh-so-blissful mattress had facilitated.

"Darling, please get up. Let's go somewhere," Madame Peng whispered. "Dear, where do you want to go?" responded the President, inwardly groaning. He grabbed his watch and scrunched up his face to peer at the hands. It was 5 am. "Might as well," he whispered back in resignation, "it's five in the morning." But why did it feel like it had only been minutes since his body sank into the Posture Pedic mattress? Must be the dhoklas. And then he remembered. He hadn't set his watch to Indian time.

"Is it morning already?" the First Lady whispered, almost as if to say, "What! Time for breakfast? No, no, I can't have yet another khandvi."

"Sorry, I forgot I am still on Beijing time," the President said, sotto voce. "It's not five in the morning, but I don't know what time it is."

"I think it is 2.30," Madame Peng whispered back. She had been more attentive to aides explaining to them that Beijing was two-and-a-half hours ahead of IST.

"Where do you want to go at this hour?" protested His Excellency in a hoarse whisper.

"I want to eat something," the First Lady replied in hushed tones. "I can't stand another minute of these Gujarati dishes … they are nice, but I can't have more of khaman, undhiyu, thepla, bhakri." In her dulcet intonation, the items sounded exotic and appealing. But then the tongue acts differently when it is pronouncing words and when tasting food.

"But where can we go?" her husband said under his breath. "Where will you get home food in this land of sweetened curries?"

"I have heard that Chinese cuisine is a big hit with shoppers at Lajpat Nagar," the former songstress whispered. "And I have heard they are innovative. Let's go and have Chinese Chaat." The way she said it in her lovely sing-song voice, even Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would have gladly gone with the Chinese duo to Lajpat Nagar to partake of the said culinary masterpiece.

The President's aide was quietly woken up from his sleep. He contacted the first secretary in the Chinese Embassy, who put through a call to his counterpart in the Indian side, who reported to his senior, who dialled the foreign secretary's number in trepidation, after which the mobile phone at Sushma Swaraj's bedside rang. At the end of it all, a black limousine glided out on Sardar Patel Road and purred its way to a small handcart in Lajpat Nagar, where a similarly awoken, befuddled local - whose closest connection to China was seeing the movie Chennai Vs China - rustled up an ugly red mash and served it to his guests at 3.30 in the morning, just as day dawned over smoggy Beijing.

On the flight back home, Madame Peng leaned over and whispered matter-of-factly in her husband's ear, "Gujarati trumps Chindian." For sheer diplomatic reasons, the President stoically kept the expression on his face inscrutable.

Free Run is a fortnightly look at alternate realities
joel.rai@bsmail.in