“Why we going to India dear? You really don’t want to do business with them?”

“Five million cheerleaders from the airport to the stadium he wants me to see! And, I’ll put out my hand and shake theirs and…”

“No husband, you got to say namaste!”

“Oh yeah I keep forgetting, you can’t touch them in their country!”

“That’s gonna be difficult for you, ain’t it dear?”

“Hey that’s my best friend’s country. I don’t do things like that to my friend’s people. This is gonna be the best time of my life! Five million people shouting my name, saying, ‘Go! Go!’!”

 “Why would they want to shout, ‘Go! Go!’?

“I don’t know but it sounded good! All them Indians shouting my name, and screaming like a huge football game! You’ll love it!”

“Nah, I’ll join you directly at the Taj!”

“You don’t wanna see five million cheer leaders acknowledging yerpresident?”

“You tell me about it at the Taj! When everybody be thinking you are whispering sweet nothings in my ear, you tell me about the five million cheer leaders!”

And so, a few days later in my imagination, just outside the Taj, as photographers jostle with each other to take pictures, and zoom lens pop, and flashes flash, as they see the romanticcouple whispering into each other’s ear, she asks, “And how was yer five million cheer leaders dear?”

“I don’t know!”

“You saying he didn’t manage to get you yer cheerleaders?”

“I don’t know who got them!” says the powerful man as he brushes back his strand of flaxen hair into place for the photographers who jostle and push and try their hardest to hear what the man is saying to his wife, “There were more than five million!”

“Ah so your friend kept his word? But how did so many line up in that drive from the airport to the stadium?”

“They were not just there from the airport to the stadium,” whispers the most powerful man on earth, “they were everywhere in the country!”

“Jumping and shouting Go! Go!?”

“No,” whispers the most powerful man on earth, as the photographers and journalists push tough security men to try and lipread what the man is whispering to his smiling wife, “No,” says the man to his wife, “They were shouting and yelling and screaming…”

“How nice, so did you say namaste to all of them?”

“I was told not to..”

“Oh! Oh!”

“So I didn’t say namaste to all them people all over the country, shouting and yelling and screaming, ‘Down with CAA, down with NPR, down with NCR!”

“So, there were cheerleaders but not for you dear hubby? My poor, dear hubby! “

And all the photographers and journos clicked the lovey-dovey couple on the lawns of the Taj Mahal, whispering sweet nothings to each other..!

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