When Narendra Modi dropped in for lunch

Every minute that the PM spent at the IRCTC-run Parliament canteen has by now been immortalized for perpetuity

Nothing could have prepared Madhu Sheel Kalra for the person she saw walking in through the side entrance to the Members of Parliament Canteen in Parliament. Eighteen years as Supervisor of the canteen, she confesses being shell-shocked for a few minutes, clutching onto the special crockery for MPs in disbelief. As PM Narendra Modi walked in with his SPG guards, a few minutes past one in the afternoon on Monday, parliament staff vouch that it was the “first time that a Prime Minister came to lunch as a customer”.  

The attempt of the PM to carve out an ‘aam aadmi image’ (especially after the Rs 10 lakh monogrammed suit episode) dining alongside his fellow parliamentarians and paying up the 29 rupees for a simple vegetarian thaali, was not lost out on Opposition Congress which took a jibe at Modi for “eating subsidized food”. The party urged him to spare a thought for the “gareeb ki thaali” (poor man’s meals) which bore the brunt of rising prices of petrol and diesel.      

Every minute that the PM spent at the IRCTC-run canteen has by now been immortalized for perpetuity. Ramashankar, one of the two IRCTC staff, who has been around since the 80’s and who served the PM recounts how surprised he was when the PM asked to be given whatever was on the menu. The 18-rupee veg ‘thaali’ with rice, malka daal, saag curry, and tandoori roti (MPs get hot tandoori rotis while rest of the Parliament staff have to make do with cold chapaatis), was served. The green salad (Rs 3) and soup (Rs 8), added to the ‘princely’ sum of Rs 29.

Ramashankar discloses that the PM polished off his meal but only ate a slice of the papaya from the fruit salad bowl. The fact that the PM himself handed over a 100-rupee note and was brought back the balance Rs 71, was also recounted in minute detail by an awestruck canteen staff.     

Madhu Sheel Kalra, a self-confessed Narendra Modi ‘fan’, was glad at having recently got the table-cloth changed to a saffron orange, “Modiji ka colour.” The MP dining room with its well laid out chairs, tables and crockery for its ‘privileged’ guests is a far cry from the ‘standing only’ arrangement of the general canteen, next door.  

So when Modi joined the table of BJP MPs from Gujarat and Bihar, power minister Piyush Goyal (who did not accompany the PM when he walked in) soon found his way to the canteen and the same table.

Ayub, the second waiter who served at the table, was keen to take a photo with the PM but was apprehensive of being shoved aside by his SPG personnel. As delighted as the staff was with all the rare media attention, the duo lamented that no one had given a thought to their plight; they had  joined the IRCTC as ‘khalaasis’ 20 years ago and would retire at the same rank with no prospects of ever being promoted.

Sensing the enormity of the occasion, the PM was requested to comment in the Visitors book; he wrote ‘Annadata sukhi bhavo’ conveying how pleased he was with the meal. That ‘autograph’ has now attained celebrity status having been clicked on cellphones and beamed on television channels.

For a PM like Modi who makes news, even when he is on a Navaratra fast (he sipped on lime water at the official banquets on his US trip) or when he partakes of a simple thaali meal, the ‘optics’ does count to keep going the Modi image.  

At the opposite end of the spectrum, was his predecessor, the low- profile, reticent Manmohan Singh who despite his ten years in power, never gave a glimpse of either his sartorial tastes or his food habits. Manmohan Singh never attained the moniker of being a man of the masses that Narendra Modi certainly is.