Once upon a dinner party
Jyoti Malhotra -
Monday, June 02, 2008 4:02 PM
I have let about a week pass before responding to a comment by Sanjay Mathur (the only one so far), to my post on the badly laid plans of the Press Office in the Indian high commission in Islamabad (Party poopers in Islamabad), about a party for Indian and Pakistani journalists to mark the visit of External Affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee’s visit to Pakistan on May 21.
I presume Sanjay Mathur and the Press Officer in Islamabad are the same person, because he hasn’t identified himself in the comment. They probably are, because Mathur displays an intimate familiarity with the event.
Since Mr Mathur is based in Islamabad, he must know the Pakistani media well. I don’t need to give him any further details of those Pakistani journalists he had invited to the media party, but didn’t turn up. As for the Indian media, we have been around so long we know the score only too well, especially when a visit takes place. The Foreign Office spokesperson, Navtej Sarna, is an old friend and been around us too. Moreover, there has rarely been a warmer and more complete gentleman than India’s high commissioner in Islamabad, Satya Pal, in the entire Indian Foreign Service. (In fact, when the Indian media was invited by him to a tea-party for Pranab Mukherjee at his residence the next day, lots of the eats had been handmade by his wife, Shrimati. She is a Malayali who speaks fluent Bengali and you should check out her cream-puffs.) I also dont know if Sanjay Mathur knows this, but the High Commissioner's grandfather is the same Radha Binode Pal, the Indian judge who gave the only dissenting judgement at the Tokyo Tribunals after World War II, an act for which the Japanese still remain grateful.
I am also firmly of the view that Mr Pal must have heard, from more than one source, how unhappy the accompanying Indian media was not to have met Mr Mukherjee the night before, which is why he insisted that we come for his tea-party.
His invitation saved the day, actually. When we arrived, we met the whole galaxy, including the External Affairs minister. If the tea-party hadn’t happened, there would have been lots of really unhappy faces around.
As a Press Officer, Sanjay Mathur should know by now that for journalists at least, news is food for thought. The eating and drinking is really irrelevant, more like a stage-setter for the main course.