Mani Shankar Aiyar vs. Suresh Kalmadi

Mani Shankar Aiyar (MSA) was in the news last week on account of his comments on the Commonwealth Games - that he would be happy of the Delhi edition was a flop as it would discourage us from hosting more games and we would instead spend the money more usefully (on sports facilities in villages etc). This led to Suresh Kalmadi, the president of the Indian Olympic Association and one of the main organizers, labeling him as anti-national.

NDTV interviewed MSA as part of their evening news program. He said that he had been against the idea of hosting the games even when he was sports minister in the last government and quoted a line from T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland":

"I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs, Perceived the scene and foretold the rest"

He prefixed his quote with a statement that Prannoy Roy (the interviewer) would need to explain this to Kalmadi since he probably would not understand the meaning :-)

I wonder how many of the current generation of politicians (Rahul Gandhi, Joytiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot, Akhilesh Yadav..) are interested in (or capable of?) quoting poetry. The only person who comes to mind is Sashi Tharoor. (I confess that my statements are based on the little I have seen of them in a few TV interviews so I may have misjudged their interest/abilities). Maybe this a skill that is no longer valued and holds no attraction for the "younger" lot. Does the inability or lack of interest in such areas reflect the fact that a well-rounded education (where people read for the love of reading) is not as common as it used to be?

I guess being impressed by such skills can be viewed as being a bit of a snob, but I am willing to plead guilty on that count. And MAS may score debating points but I suspect Kalmadi will still be there, holding onto his posts, long after MAS is gone.

Coming back to MAS - I narrated this interview story to a friend of mine and he told me another incident involving MAS and Natwar Singh, both alumni of St. Stephen's College, Delhi. Natwar Singh once remarked that "everything he was, was because of the college" to which MAS retorted "why blame the college?"

Kalmadi was part of Sharad Pawar's NCP for some time before returning to the Congress party. One story I have heard is that when asked whether Kalmadi's exit was a loss, Sharad Pawar replied to the effect that "Yes... even when you throw out cow dung from your courtyard, you also end up throwing out some mud.. and Kalmadi is more than cow dung".

So acerbic wit is not the sole preserve of the Doon / Stephen's / Oxford brigade..