The World'his Stage

One of the funniest moments in the movie “3 Idiots” is when the student Rancho replaces the vernacular word chamatkar (meaning wonderful things) with balatkar (rape) in the written speech prepared for Teachers' Day at the Imperial College of Technology and the insufferable Chatur Ramalingam , who is good at mugging up Hindi words even if he doesn't understand their meaning, goes on to praise the principal in sentences like “Pichle batthees saal se inhone is college mein nirantar balatkar kiya” : (For the past 32 years, he has continuously done rape in this college” ).

Last Friday, when India's external affairs minister inadvertently read out for three minutes his Portuguese counterpart Amado's speech at the United Nations, Pakistan's TV news-channel networks were perhaps thinking of the movie “3 Idiots” when they gleefully telecast the Krishna gaffe while ridiculing India's ambitions of becoming a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

It was almost as if Krishna had read out the Pakistan foreign minister's speech! The far-more restrained Indian media termed the incident a faux pas. It was perhaps fortunate that the Portuguese foreign minister's speech which Krishna read out did not reflect the somewhat more controversial characteristics of Amado who once allowed his little daughter to stand in a row of army generals so that she could salute US president Obama during a visit to Lisbon!

Unlike the 57-year-old Amado, the 78-year-old Krishna has a reputation for being proper to the point of stodginess. With India pitching to be a permanent member of an expanded and reformed UN Security Council, Krishna could perhaps suggest a minor reform that copies of all speeches of all foreign ministers carry in big, bold letters the speaker's name and nationality!