The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Quota for women
Hope at last on long-pending Bill
The Union Cabinet’s clearance to earmark 33 per cent seats for women in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies is an important decision by the Manmohan Singh government because the issue has been hanging fire for the last 14 years. In the past, stiff resistance from political parties like the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Samajwadi Party and the Janata Dal (United) had stymied efforts at a consensus.

Thought for the Day

ARTICLE

UP’s changing political scenario
Mulayam’s party-building skill on test
by Syed Nooruzzaman
If “politics is the art of the possible”, it also involves enormous risks. But when risks are taken ignoring voters’ sensibilities, the result can be disastrous. Calculations can go wrong, causing unimaginable harm to the party and the individuals concerned. This is exactly what has happened in the case of the Samajwadi Party (SP) headed by Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav. The party has lost its second most important leader, Mr Amar Singh, who along with Mr Yadav worked tirelessly to make the SP a force to reckon with.

MIDDLE

Human vanity
by Harish Dhillon
My experience has taught me that most people believe they are good looking and work constantly to enhance what they believe are their considerable good looks. During my postgraduation days there was a girl in my class who would come to the university with her face caked with makeup and wearing, what in those staid times, were considered outrageous clothes. She was the butt of much ridicule and boys would follow her around laughing and jeering at her. If she noticed all this, she did not show it.

OPED

A blunder by Pak Taliban
Beheading of Sikhs can have wide ramifications
by Rajinder Puri
The Pakistan Taliban, operating in the tribal area bordering Afghanistan captured two Sikhs, compelled them to convert to Islam, and on their refusal, beheaded them. After that they added salt to the wounds by sending the severed heads to Joga Singh Gurudwara in Peshawar.

Washington: Civilised, courteous but lifeless
by Howard Jacobson
Slowly and deliberately – because to do it well takes time and concentration – I am eating my way into Washington. I don't know how else to find it. Closed down in the snow, the city looked rather beautiful; distance teasingly foreclosed, every tree a work of sculpture, remote figures moving in a Bruegelesque landscape. In the immediate aftermath of the blizzard, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was a blurred ribbon of heartbreak grey against the pristine whiteness of the snow.

Chatterati
A minister’s marriage: simple and elegant
by Devi Cherian
In a rare event a Union minister just got married while in office in New Delhi. The inheritor of a quiet political lineage, Jitin Prasad's marriage to gorgeous Neha was naturally a high-voltage affair with both Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi charming VIP guests.

The Kabul killings
Taliban attack on Indians by design

Friday’s bomb blasts in hotels and guest houses in Kabul, leading to the killing of nine Indians, besides nine others, is yet another attack by the Taliban apparently targeted at discouraging India from continuing with its reconstruction activity in Afghanistan. The ISI-backed Haqqani faction of the Taliban, which has claimed responsibility for the series of explosions, including in the hotel where most Indians prefer to stay, has been behind most incidents of violence aimed at harming Indians. Haqqani men were also involved in the killing of 17 persons in a suicide attack near the Indian Embassy in October 2009 and of 41 people when a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden truck into the embassy’s gate in July 2008. The Haqqani Taliban and their masters in Islamabad are upset at the growing popularity of India among the Afghan masses.

Their desperate tactics to terrorise India and the people of Afghanistan cannot succeed. India — which has pledged over $13 billion for the construction of roads and bridges, power generation facilities, school buildings, hospitals, the parliament complex, etc — is the largest regional donor to the violence-torn country. Ordinary Afghans now realise that the projects coming up with Indian assistance can drastically transform their lives in the days to come. This is, however, not to the liking of the forces engaged in mainly protecting their narrow interests. The Afghans have come to know that Pakistan, playing a double game in their country, is mainly interested in gaining strategic depth. The growing friendship between India and Afghanistan is considered a major threat to the Pakistani designs in Kabul.

However, India-Afghanistan relations are too deep to be harmed by the kind of tactics used by the anti-India forces, including the Taliban. India is determined to do whatever it can to help revive economic activity in Afghanistan. India-assisted development projects have been a major cause for the erosion of the Taliban’s following, but there is need to do more. The Taliban’s strongholds must be destroyed by every means available to those engaged in establishing peace in Afghanistan. It is good that the US-led NATO forces will now launch a Marjah-type operation in Kandahar to drive the Talban away from this second most important town of Afghanistan. They should have, in fact, done it earlier.

Quota for women
Hope at last on long-pending Bill

The Union Cabinet’s clearance to earmark 33 per cent seats for women in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies is an important decision by the Manmohan Singh government because the issue has been hanging fire for the last 14 years. In the past, stiff resistance from political parties like the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Samajwadi Party and the Janata Dal (United) had stymied efforts at a consensus. The supremos of the three parties — Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mr Sharad Yadav — have been relentlessly opposing quotas for women. Scuttling the government’s earlier attempts, they were demanding that one-third of the proposed quota be earmarked for the OBCs and minorities among them. Now that the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Left and the DMK have pledged support to the Women’s Reservation Bill, there should be no problem for the government to ensure its smooth passage in Parliament.

The Women’s Reservation Bill is expected to be tabled in the Rajya Sabha in the form in which it was introduced in the House in 2008. To meet the two-thirds mark in the Upper House, the government needs 158 votes. Though the Congress, the BJP and the Left account for 137 members in this House, with effective floor management, the government can successfully rope in more members to support the Bill. As for the Lok Sabha, there is no problem since the major parties put together easily add up to the required numbers. Nonetheless, the government needs to convince every MP to support the Bill overwhelmingly in view of its progressive and egalitarian thrust.

Women have been neglected for long and denied their legitimate due in governance. If the Bill is passed, as many as 170 seats will be set aside for them in the Lok Sabha. A similar pattern will be followed for state legislatures. This will not only empower women in the real sense but also give them a forum to participate in policy formulation and decision-making. Women have proved their worth in fields such as civil services, education, science and technology, and banking. As in the panchayats, they will also prove their mettle in Parliament and state legislatures if the Bill is enacted.

Thought for the Day

All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it — and they do enjoy it as much as man and other circumstances will allow. — Samuel Butler

ARTICLE

UP’s changing political scenario
Mulayam’s party-building skill on test
by Syed Nooruzzaman

If “politics is the art of the possible”, it also involves enormous risks. But when risks are taken ignoring voters’ sensibilities, the result can be disastrous. Calculations can go wrong, causing unimaginable harm to the party and the individuals concerned. This is exactly what has happened in the case of the Samajwadi Party (SP) headed by Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav. The party has lost its second most important leader, Mr Amar Singh, who along with Mr Yadav worked tirelessly to make the SP a force to reckon with.

A few years ago the SP not only dominated the political scene in UP, but was also a significant player at the national level. It is, however, today faced with the worst crisis in its 18-year existence. There are many factors which appear to have contributed to the SP finding itself in difficult straits. But, undisputably, the maximum damage to the party has been caused by an ill-thought-out decision — inducting former BJP Chief Minister Kalyan Singh into the SP. Mr Amar Singh, who played the leading role in bringing Mr Kalyan Singh to the SP fold, too, has suffered in the process. The former number two leader of the SP would have never thought of leaving the party which he had built brick by brick along with Mr Yadav.

Mr Amar Singh has been known for his political gambling skill. But he made a major mistake by deciding to use the Kalyan Singh card to enlarge the SP’s base among the OBCs. The party could not gain as much as it lost by antagonising its Muslim supporters. The minority community, which holds Mr Kalyan Singh primarily responsible for what happened at Ayodhya on December 6, 1992, punished the SP by deserting it in almost every constituency in UP. The incontrovertible proof of serious erosion of the party’s Muslim following was available in the Ferozabad parliamentary byelections. The constituency, considered as the SP stronghold, recently returned Congress nominee Raj Babbar to the Lok Sabha with a considerable majority. Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav’s daughter-in-law was defeated in the constituency which was earlier represented by her husband Akhilesh Yadav, being groomed to take up the reins of the SP.

Mr Amar Singh was now faced with the most difficult challenge in his political career. He added to the list of his detractors in the SP the man who was well placed to make Mr Amar Singh realise that his days in the party were numbered. If Mr Amar Singh was the cause of Mr Azam Khan, Mr Beni Prasad Verma and Mr Raj Babbar leaving the SP and many leaders getting marginalised, now was his turn to meet the same fate. First he was forced to resign all the party posts on January 6. Then he left the SP lock, stock and barrel. Before his final departure Mr Kalyan Singh, too, dissociated himself from the SP, accusing Mr Yadav of not being a dependable friend.

Mr Kalyan Singh was a close associate of Mr Yadav at one time, but the SP leader was careful to maintain a distance from him till the former BJP stalwart was made a part of the party patronised by the minority community. Those among the SP’s Muslim supporters who were aware of this fact ignored it as something inconsequential. A majority of the Muslim voters who were disillusioned with the Congress in the nineties in UP shifted their loyalties to the SP, founded on the socialist ideals as expounded by Dr Ram Manohar Lohia. The party went from strength to strength with the emergence of the powerful MY (Muslim-Yadav) factor.

Within four years of its founding in 1992 it became a major force in the country’s most populous state. In 1996, it captured 110 of the 424 seats in the UP Vidhan Sabha (Assembly). In 2002, the SP’s assembly strength grew to 143 seats in a House of 403. During the 2004 parliamentary polls the SP emerged as the top scorer in UP winning 35 of the then 85 seats. The party, however, suffered a setback in the 2007 Assembly polls. The SP’s archrival, the BSP, captured power though there was little difference in their vote percentage. The SP’s performance in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections was very upsetting for the party leadership, yet it captured 23 seats against the BSP’s 20.

The setback it had been suffering particularly since 2007 was enough to make the SP leadership realise that it needed to mend its ways. But Mr Amar Singh refused to see the writing on the wall. He prevailed upon Mr Yadav to continue to indulge in one major gamble after another. The result is before everyone to see.

The Congress will apparently be the major gainer if the SP gets reduced to a marginal player in UP. While most of the disenchanted Muslim followers of the SP have begun supporting the Congress, now a section of the upper caste voters, particularly the Thakurs, are also unlikely to extend their patronage to Mr Mulayam Singh’s party after Mr Amar Singh’s departure from it. Chief Minister Mayawati’s BSP and the BJP, too, may benefit from the decline of the SP.

The party that bailed out the previous UPA government when its existence was threatened following the controversy over the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal is unlikely to find a replacement for Mr Amar Singh. The posts he vacated have been filled, but the party has no leader who can be Mr Amar Singh’s match for raising funds. The SP’s Bollywood connection may also not remain as strong as it was earlier.

These are, indeed, difficult times for the SP. Mr Mulayam Singh’s skill as a party builder is on test. He is, no doubt, a grassroots politician with considerable following even now. It was he who had perfected the MY combination to capture power in UP. What he does now to regain his lost supporters will be interesting to watch.

MIDDLE

Human vanity
by Harish Dhillon

My experience has taught me that most people believe they are good looking and work constantly to enhance what they believe are their considerable good looks.

During my postgraduation days there was a girl in my class who would come to the university with her face caked with makeup and wearing, what in those staid times, were considered outrageous clothes. She was the butt of much ridicule and boys would follow her around laughing and jeering at her. If she noticed all this, she did not show it.

One girl in our class finally spoke to her about the situation. She shrugged her shoulders, flashed a demure smile and said: “When I am beautiful, boys will follow me!”

I have one-way reflecting glass fixed in the windows of my office. While I can look out at the people passing by, they think they are looking into a mirror. Most of those who pass stop to admire their reflections. They adjust their hair or dust a part of their faces and then break into a smile of happiness. I can identify with them for every morning when I look at my hazy reflection in the mirror, in a short-sighted way, I tell myself. “Not bad for 69 years” and smile at myself.

Many people adopt a style icon and work to look like him or her — in clothes, in makeup and even in hairstyles.

One of my friends, who had grown up on Marlene Dietrich films, decided that she looked like Dietrich. Even when she wore Indian clothes she fashioned herself, in her hairstyle, her makeup and her accessories on that legendary actress.

She had once seen Dietrich in a long sable coat. The image of herself in a similar coat haunted her day and night and became the focus of all her desires. Finally her husband returned from a trip to Moscow with the coat of her dreams. Unfortunately, Delhi, even in the severest winter, was never cold enough for the sable and it was a few years before the opportunity to wear it came her way.

There was a December wedding in Shimla. For the afternoon reception my friend arrived wearing her gorgeous sable and, I must say, she looked stunningly like Dietrich. She was the focus of all attention. Later in the afternoon the sun came out and it became warm. One by one the ladies divested themselves of their shawls and coats. My friend stuck resolutely to her sable, in spite of her obvious discomfort. I asked her why she didn’t take it off.

“I can’t,” she said in a dramatic whisper. Then looked hurriedly around to ensure that there was no one else within earshot. “I knew that it would turn warm so I am only wearing a salwar and a brassiere under the coat.”

Like the heroine of Maupassant’s “ The Necklace”, I knew that in spite of the discomfort she would cherish the memory of that triumphant afternoon all her life.

OPED

A blunder by Pak Taliban
Beheading of Sikhs can have wide ramifications
by Rajinder Puri

The Pakistan Taliban, operating in the tribal area bordering Afghanistan captured two Sikhs, compelled them to convert to Islam, and on their refusal, beheaded them. After that they added salt to the wounds by sending the severed heads to Joga Singh Gurudwara in Peshawar.

By doing this the Pakistan Taliban might just have made the costliest error in its blood-stained history. It might just have taken the one step that could pose greater danger to its existence than anything that might have been attempted thus far by the US or NATO.

The Pakistan Taliban consists of Pashtuns settled for generations in Punjab. They were formerly led by the Mehsuds. There are other Afghan outfits that subscribe to the al-Qaeda ideology such as the Haqqani outfits, also based in Pakistan 's FATA territory.

The long-term aims of the Afghanistan Taliban led by Mullah Omar and the Pakistan Taliban do not necessarily coincide. The Pakistan Taliban's atrocity against the Sikhs might just recoil fatally against it. Here is why.

Even a cursory acquaintance with Sikh history and character would reveal that the Sikhs have embedded deep within them a fanatical dogged streak that, if aroused, becomes almost impossible to extinguish.

Sending the severed heads of two martyrs committed to their faith to the gurudwara is precisely the kind of action that could ignite that streak. The rage that will inevitably spread across the Sikh community in rural Punjab could alter dramatically the power alignments within the terrorist fold. To appreciate that a few facts not commonly recognised need to be recalled.

For decades it was commonly stated that 50 or so families in Punjab ruled Pakistan. What was not stated was that about 40 per cent of these ruling families of the rural Punjab province of Pakistan were Jat Sikhs who voluntarily converted to Islam in order to retain their land holdings.

These converted Jat Sikhs had no trouble gaining acceptance from their Muslim Jat cousins, farmers all. The converts are Muslims in name. What their commitment to any religion might be only time will reveal. Their commitment to land, wealth and power has been confirmed beyond doubt. They could now constitute a potential fifth column in Pakistan. It would not be a fifth column that could serve the Indian government. It would be the fifth column serving the Sikh diaspora that contains several terrorist outfits with a presence in Europe, Canada and the US.

Now recall the aborted Khalistan demand. Before Khalistan was formally announced by Jagjit Singh Chauhan, he sought my opinion. I told him it was worthless because it made no sense. I further said that the demand for a united Punjab cutting across India and Pakistan made greater sense given the norms of nationhood. I said that would create the 'United States of Asia'.

A little after my interaction with him I recounted our dialogue and my views in the weekly column that I wrote then for the Sunday Observer published in Bombay. Predictably, the Khalistan demand floundered. But the Sikhs continue to remain dissatisfied, though not disruptive.

Sikh grievances were heightened after Haryana state was carved out of Punjab. The manner in which Indira Gandhi reneged on solemn assurances given to Punjab regarding the sharing of waters and the future status of Chandigarh not surprisingly was viewed by Sikhs as evidence of Hindu communalism. Added to the assurance given by Pandit Nehru at the time of Independence that the Sikhs would be made "to feel the glow of freedom", Sikh frustration inevitably grew.

The partition of Punjab during Independence left the Sikhs most orphaned among the state's three main communities. The loss of identity among the Muslims in Punjab was compensated partially by the creation of Pakistan, of the Hindus by the creation of Bharat. The Sikhs felt that they got little or nothing.

After the subsequent mishandling by the Union Government Sikh separatism was bound to erupt. The Khalistan movement further depleted the community. Today Punjab is the sufferer. Witness the very large number of youth in Punjab who seek migration to make a future abroad. Is it not symptomatic?

It is in this context that the unfolding drama across the border may revive the Khalistan demand in a new avatar. Current reports suggest that the ISI is reviving the Khalistan insurgency. This might become the agency's biggest-ever goof-up. Because now all the Sikh militants who are given sanctuary by the ISI in Pakistan could eventually switch loyalties.

Egged on by Sikhs in India and their NRI financial backers abroad, they could turn against the ISI and the Taliban. Defying New Delhi, India 's Sikh militants could infiltrate into Pakistan not to seek sanctuary but to create disruption. There could develop for Pakistan a Kashmir syndrome in reverse.

Might not Sikhs eventually seek a common ground with the Pashtuns, who share greater affinity with Afghanistan than with Pakistan? Might not the Afghan Taliban, which does not share as much the long-term goals of al-Qaeda as does the Pakistan Taliban, dump the ISI?

If such developments do occur the Khalistan demand might revive for a region encompassing as much of Pakistan-ruled Punjab as the Indian Punjab. Along with Pashtunistan and Baluchistan, Khalistan too could become Pakistan's headache.

Islamabad and New Delhi, caught in the pincer move of Sikhs and the Pashtuns, could be compelled to fundamentally alter the present subcontinental arrangement.

Does this sound like a wildly improbable scenario? Perhaps. But do wait for at least one year before arriving at a final judgment.

Washington: Civilised, courteous but lifeless
by Howard Jacobson

Slowly and deliberately – because to do it well takes time and concentration – I am eating my way into Washington. I don't know how else to find it.

Closed down in the snow, the city looked rather beautiful; distance teasingly foreclosed, every tree a work of sculpture, remote figures moving in a Bruegelesque landscape. In the immediate aftermath of the blizzard, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was a blurred ribbon of heartbreak grey against the pristine whiteness of the snow.

From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, across the park, the Capitol glimmered as misty as a mirage. But then the snow melted and rather than recover its distinctness, Washington seemed not to be there at all.

Where are the people? Cars pour into the city at rush hour, but wherever they disgorge their passengers, it isn't here. It's not as though Washington's a non-walking city like Los Angeles. Broad pavements line wide boulevards, but there are few shoppers even when the sun shines, and part of the reason for that is that there are no shops.

Don't be mercilessly literal with me: of course there are shops, but unless you drive out of the city to a mall, there's nothing that answers to Regent Street in London, or Market Street in Manchester, nowhere that feels like town.

And when you do gratefully stumble upon some lone shop you can't tell if it's open. The windows are tinted, nobody is moving inside, there's no bustle, no clatter, no sound. Cafés and restaurants the same. Most of the seats are empty, the staff are immobile, the lights are dim. It's a sort of principled civic bashfulness.

I'm told that inner-city Washington never really recovered from the race riots of 1968, and now the recession has hit it again. But to my eye the problem is more fundamental. Call it the Milton Keyes or Canberra curse: the lifelessness of a city that's planned before it's had chance to grow.

Washington has too much space to play with. People are not pressed up against the windows of coffee shops and restaurants the way they are in overcrowded Britain because there's room to build a small hotel between where they're sitting and the street.

The same spatial profligacy robs the boulevards of character; nothing is squeezed, nothing suddenly appears or disappears, nothing invites you with promises of change. The flat-fronted office buildings are uniform in size and colour.

This is a city that's given over in spirit to the tedium of archiving and administration. They make it as heroic as they can. They erect statues, stick Roman pillars and porticos to oblong buildings, and occasionally throw on a dome, but in the end, admin is just admin.

Don't get me wrong. I'm enjoying the space and the civility that goes with it. No litter, no rudeness, no graffiti, no hatred. Only think about crossing the road and the traffic stops for you whether, in the end, you want to cross or not. The students I teach are uncannily courteous. Just as cars are not at war with pedestrians, so are the young not at war with the old, or the old with the young.

Everything that drives me to the edge of madness in Britain – the city filth, the relentless profanity, the psychopathic cyclists, the sneering tone of popular debate, the self-righteousness of those who comment on affairs, celebrity, drunkenness, the underlying menace – everything, in short, that makes us a shame and a scandal among the civilised nations of the world, is absent here.

But no amount of absence will ever constitute a presence, and other than in a few suburbs such as Georgetown and Dupont Circle – the equivalents of Hampstead and Notting Hill – I can't find this town.

So I'm eating my way into the heart of it. Is this the real thing, I ask myself, when the waiter at the fill-your-face Cheese Cake Factory recommends a lentil and bacon soup, then adds "Please be aware of the flavour content".

Rather than ask him what this means I order the soup. And the flavour content? Reader, I'm not aware of it. I'm similarly bemused when the table attendant at Morton's Steakhouse refuses to show me a menu. "I'm gonna do my presentation," he tells me, when I persist, "after I've got the drinks."

Presentation? All I want is a steak. In fact he doesn't only present me with a tray containing every known cut of cow, he actually holds up an unpeeled potato to demonstrate what the French fries will be made of. I ask my wife if she's ever been shown an unpeeled potato before. Not in a restaurant, she assures me. I feel we're getting somewhere at last.

From the windows of the Hay-Adams hotel, where we brunch, you can see the White House. This propinquity, which part explains the hotel's cultivated old-fashionedness, is said to guarantee an authentic air of "Washington".

Other than a middle-aged lady being Gertrude Stein in an overlarge hat which makes eating, or at least seeing what she's eating, difficult for her, there is no one here you wouldn't expect to see taking tea in the Dorchester.

At the other end, socially, is Ben's Chili Bowl on U Street, made famous to the outside world when Obama, in his glory days, popped in without warning for a Chili half-smoke. On the advice of an American couple in the queue, this is what I order – a half-smoked hot dog smothered in chilli sauce, accompanied by chips smothered in cheese. Wonderful.

And the better for my having been shown where chips come from. But I wonder if the popularity which this all black-owned and black-staffed hot dog joint is enjoying among the admin men in limousines doesn't have some desperation about it. Everyone looking for an authenticity which won't stay still long enough for you to grab it.

They say the President sets the fashion for eating in this town. With Bush it was all barbecues. With Obama it's salads and chili sausages. You can understand the confusion.

When I tell Washingtonians that I've eaten at Café Milano they ask, excitedly, if I saw, perhaps, a Supreme Court judge. How civilised is this! Not did I see Lady Gaga but did I see a Supreme Court judge. What I can't decide is whether it's the height of sophistication or the depths of naivety. Something else they're asking about Obama's administration.

— By arrangement with The Independent

Chatterati
A minister’s marriage: simple and elegant
by Devi Cherian

In a rare event a Union minister just got married while in office in New Delhi. The inheritor of a quiet political lineage, Jitin Prasad's marriage to gorgeous Neha was naturally a high-voltage affair with both Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi charming VIP guests.

The bride and the groom were relaxed through all the loops and hoops of a traditional Thakur wedding. At the main reception the bride and the groom refused to conform to any formal seating style and instead wandered through the crowd, which consisted of politicians, media barons and industrialists.

The guests may be tight-lipped about it, but those in the inner circle who attended the “sangeet” know that the evening had fun festivities. The “mehendi” lunch on its part was, however, traditional with India's young parliamentary brigade in full attendance with spouses teasing Jitin on the last days of his bachelorhood. UP delicacies were part of many meals.

As Jitin's mother is from a renowned family of Himachal, her side of the family performed the local 'Nati' dance. There were other folk dancers who kept the guests busy while the family gracefully performed the traditional pre-wedding festivities.

While festivities were the focus, the refined formality of a solemn wedding was not missed out. It started with the baraat getting ready with young Sachin Pilot having to pitch in and help the team of turban-tiers to cope with the high and mighty whose heads required the multi-hued turbans individually prepared. The groom left his home dressed in an “achkan” and old family “Emerald Kalgi” looking very much a “khandaani Thakur.”

Loud bands and disco lights were mercifully missing even as the “baraat” arrived almost on time. The wedding ceremony was simple and swift but eating was long and delicious with cooks brought in from the Uttar Pradesh heartland where Jitin's political fortunes lie. The focus was on friends and family members in all events except a reception after wedding festivities where both the Ambani brothers turned up.

The reception set an example with its simplicity and elegance. No pomp and show here. In Jitin's constituency a lunch was hosted where the groom and the bride were present.

After Jitin's wedding one is reminded of his father's Jitendra Prasad's wedding. He was already a member of Parliament when he came to wed Kanta Thakur in Shimla. It was four-feet snow that the VIP “baraatis” had to struggle through. But that wedding the Himachalis present will never forget for its elegance and simplicity.

Deepender Hooda ties the knot

Another member of Parliament who tied the knot within the same week of Jitin Prasad's wedding was Deepender Hooda. In Delhi father Hooda, the Chief Minister of Haryana, and his graceful wife, Asha, hosted a rather exclusive but traditional “sangeet” evening for very close friends at their residence in Delhi. This function had the “choori-walas” and the “mehendi” ceremony. Friends danced to the tune of Haryanvi songs led by the groom's mother Asha dressed in a typical elegant Haryanvi style.

Bhupinder Hooda did not make this a show of strength or power but more or less a family affair. The food was vegetarian but delicious. The evening saw close friends like Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and Ahmed Patel's family. It was a relaxed evening, full of fun where everyone was at ease. The next day the “baraat” took off to Jaipur in Volvo buses to get the beautiful Mirdha girl home to Rohtak for a reception there.