DNA
New Delhi, Jan 11: Differing cultural mores can pose giant headaches when foreign VIPs come calling. The news that France’s swinging, twice-divorced President, Nicolas Sarkozy, wants to bring his new supermodel girlfriend, Carla Bruni, with him when he drops in to attend our Republic Day parade has sent prurient prickles and apprehensive shivers rippling through the ruling establishment.
How do you slot someone who’s not a wife, not even a fiancée? No problem, if you’re French. They even have a term for their Presidents, most of who have had a long line in mistresses. They refer to them as ‘lapin chaud” or hot rabbit.
But in India, we’re more squeamish. The official line is that it’s up to the French to decide Bruni’s label. If they want her handled as spouse, the government will lay out the official red carpet, even seat her at the head table for the state banquet. But privately, the powers-that-be would prefer the model not to come.
They haven’t dared say so to the French, especially after we cancelled a fat defence contract, which was to be signed during the Sarkozy visit, to buy Eurocopters for the Indian Air Force. So, we’re doing what we do best, which is to speak in riddles through ongoing delicate negotiations on how to fit the President’s arm candy into the official tableau.
What’s worrying the government is the prospect of a domestic outcry from the conservative fringes. Congress circles haven’t forgotten the rightwing Hindu reaction to Rahul Gandhi’s Kerala holiday with his girlfriend. Someone slapped an FIR on him on moral grounds.
More recently, the Egyptian government got huge flak for hosting Bruni when Sarkozy took her with him for a Christmas break to Luxor. Bruni discreetly disappeared when the official leg of the French President’s trip began but it didn’t stop Egyptian lawmakers from lashing out.
Independent parliamentarian damned it as ‘official prostitution’ in a speech on the floor of the House and derided the Mubarak government for sanctioning it by extending protocol courtesies to Bruni. The Egyptian obviously found it difficult to say no but the Vatican firmly put its foot down when Sarkozy, a Roman Catholic, called on Pope Benedict.
Papal advisors are believed to have advised Sarkozy’s aides to restrict the visit to the President only. Of course, it didn’t stop the besotted leader from checking for text messages from Bruni on his mobile phone during his talks with the Pope. The French media went to town about it, much to everyone’s embarrassment.
The Chinese were more fortunate. They didn’t have to deal with painful protocol tangles. Sarkozy went to Beijing last November with his mother as his official companion. All very respectable. But China can’t boast of being home to the monument of love. Our shutterbugs are salivating at the prospect of clicking the ravishing model and Sarkozy in a clinch in front of the Taj Mahal. It beats by a yard the famous picture of a lonely Diana on the bench when her marriage to Prince Charles was collapsing.