Cross-border gift gets Navjot Singh Sidhu the bird

A traditional Yuletide song detailing the seasonal gifts given to the singer by a true love contains the refrain ‘A partridge in a pear tree’. However, a pre-Christmas present of a rare black partridge reportedly made by a Pakistani journalist to the Indian cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu has turned out to be googly that might well leave the erstwhile wielder of the willow stumped. On his return to India following his visit to Pakistan for the Kartarpur corridor opening ceremony, Sidhu apparently failed to declare the stuffed bird in his baggage, which is a transgression under the Wildlife Act.

With Sidhu, a cabinet minister in the state government, having in turn presented the bird of ill-omen to Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh, the partridge has become the centre of what bodes to turn out into a full-fledged, or full-feathered, cause célèbre. Sidhu, who is known for his one-line witticisms — such as ‘No one travels on the road to success without a puncture or two’ — is unlikely to allow his sizeable amour propre to be deflated by the prickly issue. However, others of a less insouciant bent of mind might see in the episode yet another instance of the sinister evidence of a ‘foreign wing’ at nefarious work. Some a school of tort might interpret the partridge as proof of Pakistani foul play designed to make a self-professed dove look like a total murga.