Two to tango

Finance Minister P Chidambaram, his senior bureaucrats and financial sector regulators gave former Reserve Bank of India Governor D Subbarao a farewell lunch at New Delhi's Gymkhana Club last week. In an interview last month, Subbarao had jokingly said he would like to learn salsa after he retired and the finance ministry appears to have absorbed half the message because he was given a coffee-table book on Indian dance as a memento. But it was Chidambaram's good-natured dig that left the former governor speechless. As he presented the book the finance minister told Subbarao, "I know you are health conscious, but don't walk alone; dance alone." "Walk alone" was an oblique reference to a statement Chidambaram had made after the central bank refused to toe the finance ministry's line last year and the differences between the two were brought out in the open. Subbarao, too, had made a joking reference to that comment when he retired. At Thursday's lunch, though, the chemistry between the two reminded everyone of the bonhomie they enjoyed when Subbarao was finance secretary.