Waiting for a call from PM Modi

Life is full of surprises, pleasant and unpleasant, but nothing can be more pleasant than to find a friend and colleague you have known, off and on, for several years, suddenly hit the headlines as your next prime minister, no less, in an avalanche of votes that takes your breath away. I am referring, of course, to Narendra Modi, who has been residing in Delhi's Race Course Road for quite some time now. 30 years ago, when we first met in BJP's central office on Ashoka Road in Delhi, he was a nervous 'cadet' and I was a member of its national executive and a kind of jack-of-all-trades, but primarily an 'expert' who looked after the party's economic policies. I don't exactly remember when I first saw Modi, for he was an unusually silent worker. I say unusually because for a budding politician he was so silent that it took me and most of our other colleagues, six months to make his acquaintance. At one time, he was the party's secretary, which is not quite as exalted a position as you may think but which gave him an entry to everything we did or did not do, for he was everywhere and he was nowhere. T

This article was originally published on January 01, 2022.