Bush seemed especially relaxed, jovial, animated and cordial. Despite some necessary effigy-burning in Delhi, the effusive hospitality of official India seems to have got to the Prez. Bush may be the world’s bully, his policies in West Asia may stink, he may be a menace to multilateral diplomacy, but he’s high, very high, on India. Even more than the charismatic and crafty Bill Clinton. Bush seems determined to push India and the United States into a tight, permanent embrace. This, not for sentimental or mystical reasons, but because a close relationship is hugely beneficial to both countries.
At the PM’s lunch at Taj Palace, he went from table to table cracking jokes and flattering us desperate-for-invite guests with "thank you for making time to come here!" Bush thanking us 100-odd Delhiwallahs for making the time to break bread with him. He told the wife of our man in Washington, Ronen Sen, "See you back home." Gushed Mrs Sen: "He has an uncanny knack of remembering faces. Last night at the airport he saw me and beamed, ‘Great. You are here too’." At the lunch, he charmed everyone from Kumaramangalam Birla to Rajnath Singh to the chefs to us lowly editors. Is this the same man who gratuitously drops cluster bombs on Iraqi civilians?
At President Kalam’s banquet, Bush was in even better form as he savoured imperial grandeur in a democratic republic. I told him his visit was a "triumph". His eyes lit up: "We’ve worked very hard and there is more hard work to be done in Washington."
Bush’s passage to India is turning out to be a thundering success. One could see this by the ear-to-ear grin on the faces of Indian and American officials.
