Advice To Aspiring Prime Ministers

So James went to a teacher of opera singing, and was amazingly tuned up. He learnt many things; the most important thing he learnt was to tank up before you speak. All opera singers, before they begin an aria or whatever the shortest unit of singing is called, quickly empty their lungs and fill them up to capacity: The secret is to get all the air out by pulling your diaphragm in, and then, by letting your diaphragm out, filling your lungs with brand-new air. I pass on this tip to all aspiring prime ministers.

All of them could do with better breathing. But that is not going to make them prime minister. Each of them needs personal tuition. But none of them is going to engage me as tutor. So I am going to give them free advice, starting with my favourite candidate and going down the list of preference.

 

Manmohan Singh would particularly benefit from the above prescription. He is a natural tenor; without enough air in the chest, his voice comes out thin and reedy. Others need to think before they speak. He thinks so fast that this is not necessary; instead, he should breathe before he speaks. He should also abjure the words, I think, which he uses too often; everyone knows that he thinks. He should also avoid the temptation to adjust his turban while speaking. He is a great exponent of what is wrong with our country and what needs to be done with it. But he must vary his pitch; the words, though excellent, have stayed unchanged for six years. And he must shorten his sentences. He must train himself to answer television anchors questions in three sentences compressed into 30 seconds. If he is quicker, the anchors will not like it, for they take 30 seconds to work out what meaningless gesture they are going to make with their hands next. If he takes longer, they will cut him off, for nothing annoys them more

than a politician who hogs more air time than they. Still, Manmohan Singh could learn a lot from them about manual flourishes. He has got only one: he slices the air as if he were cutting ladies fingers; this is not a regal enough gesture for a prime minister.

Chandrababu Naidu should become more laid-back. He looks too earnest, too intense, too fierce. He developed this style to scare Lakshmi Parvathi. She has been suitably scared; now Naidu is the chief minister, and he should relax. When he gets up in the morning, he should say to himself: I am going to charm one woman today. Then, as he improves, he should increase the dose, until all the Andhra biddies (or whatever the feminine plural of a bidda may be) fall for him.

Priyanka does not have to make the opposite resolution because she will charm men whether she wants it or not. She has got a great idea learning three words in every Indian language to say: Vote for Congress. She has a great advantage over all other candidates, namely that she has time -- she can expect to stay in business four or five times as long as the old men. So she should take her time and expand her vocabulary from 3 to 30,000 words in every Indian language. She will then be Indias first polyglot politician; she will be able to make herself understood anywhere in the country. If she does that, she will beat all the Hindi zealots and Tamil lovers.

Jyoti Basu should smile. He gives reporters the feeling that they are nincompoops. They may be, but there is no reason to make it so obvious. And he should go easy on fire and brimstone. Leftists are trained to abuse class enemies; just as Bengalis burst into Ravindra Sangeet whenever they get together, leftists break into a diatribe against the Congress, the BJP or whichever happens to be the moments enemy of choice. Jyotibabu needs to charm people especially non-Bengalis who are not so familiar with his illustrious reign.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee must open his eyes. His one-liners are simply marvellous; if he can deliver such superb bouncers while dozing, what would he do if he woke up? Also, he should dilute his wit. If he spoke three sentences instead of one, he would gain popularity with the television anchors, and get more air time. And he should give up the shrug and the flick of hand that he uses as punctuation marks in his sentences marks of irony, dismissal, disillusionment or cynicism as the case may be. Something more magisterial is required perhaps a slow-action version of Sonias wave.

These hints may sound flippant, but I hope my favourite politicians will take them seriously, for the rewards could be unimaginable. Just consider what happened to Clive James. He went out to lunch and described his experiences as a novice opera singer to his companions; they asked him to demonstrate his newly acquired talent, which he did in a duet with one of them. As our last notes faded away, the whole restaurant burst into appl-ause. It might have been because I had stopped singing, but I like to think it was a tribute to our joint impact just as I like to think that Mr Johnsons twitching smile throughout the performance was a sign of envy rather than embarrassment, and that he pulled his jacket over his head because the beauty of what he heard was too much for him to bear.