To begin with, I have no particular fondness for high-placed government officials, especially those who talk down to you from their high horses. This would include the spokespersons of the Ministry of External Affairs those very serious looking (mostly) gentlemen who the common man rarely gets to interact with. When they address a briefing and we watch them on TV, their inordinately long pauses after almost every phrase uttered, peppered with unimaginative hoos and haas, and their fumbling for the ‘right’ words (with more long pauses) simply drain the viewers’ patience and peace of mind.
Imagine a spokesperson taking more than five minutes simply to get the message out that “the government has taken note of the matter and will announce its views ‘in due course’.” The Ministry of External Affairs tops the list. By a margin and a half, really.
Such behaviour appears snobbish and put-on — a needless attempt to pretend that they have to think so terribly hard before choosing each word they utter. Yes, they do have to choose their words very carefully. But one would expect senior officials representing the government’s views to be better prepared and therefore able to speak well while briefing. After all, the whole world watches such briefings carefully.
I strongly suspect that these spokespersons hubristically compete amongst themselves over who can consume the maximum amount of time while revealing the minimum amount of substance.
That said, the Ministry of External Affairs does handle very important matters that greatly affect the country. Their utterances could influence whether your nation enjoys VVIP status at a gathering of nations, or finds itself treated as a pariah among more powerful and prestigious countries. The Ministry has a humongous responsibility.
The price of being so important is that MEA personnel have to be on their toes 24/7. And when there is something as important as the BRICS summit being held in our own country’s capital, their usual routines go for a toss. They can have no fixed schedule for simple personal things like eating, sleeping, contacting family, etc., that they might otherwise wish to follow.
But despite their physical busyness during, and for months before, such an important event as the BRICS summit, the human body’s most fundamental need — food — has to be acknowledged. For an overworked official to grab any opportunity to have a bite is in no way uncivil behaviour.
In the old days, if there was one surefire reason for an army to suffer defeat, it was for lack of food. It used to be said, “An army cannot fight on an empty stomach.”
Food is important, whoever you may be.
So, if in the midst of proceedings during the recently concluded BRICS summit in Delhi, some people seated among the audience took the opportunity to partake of the snacks — in this case, some variety of nuts, reportedly — placed before each person, there is nothing incorrect about it. Similar snacks were placed beside each invitee sitting in the audience, and they were all free to munch on them. And many might have, obviously.
But some nut-case videographers at the venue focused only on the Indian officials eating some nuts, and publicised clips that had been sped up three times, making their casual eating appear as gluttony. This was definitely a deliberate attempt to portray the Indian officials in a bad light.
The perpetrators presumably hoped that these clips would result in labelling the Indians with hash tags like “hungry Indians”, “poor Indians”, “mannerless Indians”, etc.
But they failed.
For one thing, snacking during proceedings at important events is neither unusual nor inherently unacceptable. Secondly, the perpetrators’ need to exaggerate the simple act of eating normally (by speeding up the videos three times) to make it appear as ‘voracious gluttony’ pins the falsity they tried to create.
It is good that Indian news channels were quick to point out these facts and clear the false clouds that had been painted over the incident. If anything, this incident and its wide reportage have brought into focus to more common people, the tough times that MEA officials often go through.
From now on, while watching MEA briefings, I will be a little more tolerant of the hoos and haas of the briefing spokespersons. Theirs is, after all, an excruciatingly demanding profession.
Though I sincerely wish they would get rid of the habit altogether.
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