Opinion Far from the Truth

But the highlight of the week was Left,Right and Centre on NDTV,where they dissected Jacqueline Kennedy’s half-century-old diss of Indira Gandhi. Mrs Gandhi’s secretary,R.K. Dhawan was on air,looking as purse-lipped as Kennedy accused Mrs Gandhi of being,and said of the statements: “Very disparaging,far from the truth,and I have no hesitation to say they are worth being thrown in waste-paper basket.” He paused,then added: “Far from truth,totally uncalled-for,rather very disparaging — and far from the truth.”

Dhawan’s co-panelists — Praveen Swamy,Swapan Dasgupta and Padma Rao — had been lulled into a near-comatose state by the rhythmic repetitiveness of Dhawan’s measured statement. In the next few seconds,though,in the funniest TV moment you’ll see this month,their eyes went wide,they sat up straight,and then they collapsed in did-he-just-say-that laughter.

For Dhawan,having established to the best of his ability that Kennedy’s statements were — what was it? ah yes — far from the truth,proceeded to shift gears smoothly. With the practised ease that must come after years of experience with a major political party’s dirty-tricks centre,he moved from Stout Defence to Attacking Character of Critic. Unfortunately,instead of suggesting that,say,Jacqueline Kennedy had a problem with stronger women like Indira Gandhi,he chose to say: “I think one should not forget that Mrs Kennedy herself,having abandoned the prestige of the family after the death of her husband,ran after money !” [Suppressed laughter throughout studio. Panellists giggling,bug-eyed. “She married very old,very rich person. So that you can imagine,the thinking of a person.”

Dhawan then informed us that the reason that Kennedy was vicious about Mrs Gandhi in 1963 was that Indira Gandhi,in turn,spoke firmly to Nixon in 1970. The Congress party’s current thinking on the subject of Mrs Gandhi,clearly,is that she was such a superwoman that her words could irritate people immensely even before she said them. The normal laws of space-time are no bar,the Congress believes,to Mrs Gandhi’s ability to piss people off.

Nidhi Razdan,the anchor,thanked Dhawan and went to the panel,which she said,in a voice that shook ever so slightly,was “fascinated by what he said”. (Fascination,for me,tends to involve less giggling.) Rao,Dasgupta and Swamy,who looked like they were trying out to represent India at the Smirking event in the Olympics,rose to the occasion manfully. Dasgupta,for example,eyed photographs of Kennedy’s 1962 visit to India,and declared that Nehru was “clutching” Kennedy in all of them; remembered Nehru “had a certain partiality for attractive Caucasians”,apparently distinguishing him from every other Indian male,ever; and concluded that Nehru’s daughter naturally disapproved of the PM’s “fawning”. History through Page-3 captioning.

Keeping a straight face throughout was not made easier by NDTV’s irritating habit of not turning off sound from their accompanying visuals completely. Since one of the videos on a loop was of Kennedy on an elephant,Dhawan’s statements harmonised perfectly with the elephant’s self-important trumpeting.

Whenever the camera gave up on the helplessly giggling panelists,it would drift back to Razdan,who managed to sit straight-backed and solemn,a respectful expression on her face,and not the glimmer of a giggle in sight. Ah,news anchors are truly a more perfect breed of men and women. Or possibly they’ve just heard everything by now.

mihir.sharma@expressindia.com