Me: Well said, Mantriji, well said.

HM (gazing long and hard at his extremely well-polished shoes): We shall trample them underfoot. Fight them on land and in sea, we shall fight them in space and outer space. We shall never surrender.

Me: Mantriji, you sound almost Churchillian, if I may say so.

HM (sitting up very straight and frowning at a crease on his right sleeve): They think they are destablising this country and this government, but they had better think again.

Me: Quite right, Mantriji, you have to display national resolve.

HM (pulling out a rose from the vase in front of him, and pinning it to his coat): Day and night they try and undermine our authority and terrorise us. It shall no longer be tolerated.

Me: That’s exactly what Giuliani said when New York came under attack.

HM (looking down on the rose now beaming rosily from his lapel): They should know that there is a limit to our tolerance.

Me: Yes, we need to show zero tolerance to all acts of terror.

HM (contemplating the fall of his left trouser leg): They must know that the Home Ministry has tracked some of them down.

Me: I am sure they are really on the run.

HM (contemplating the fall of his right trouser leg): Every man and woman who terrorises us will be demobilised.

Me: That’s great, Mantriji, which groups have you zeroed in on until now?

HM (pulling out a mirror and considering his left cheek): We first blocked access to 17 websites. We may have lifted this now but this troublesome community of half a million potential terrorists, also known as bloggers, knows we are watching them.

... contd.