The wife is not just apolitical — she is completely detached, by choice. On the rare occasions, I try lecturing her on the need to be more involved, she quotes an old Tamil song of which the refrain goes: “Raman aandalum Ravanan aandalum…” (Loosely translated, what difference whether Ram rules or Raavan?)
But even she has been in a bit of a state these past 24 hours, marking the passage of almost every hour with “God, what do you think he is going to do?” The “he” is Modi, and her numerous invocations have to do with the speech the PM was to make today, and what new headache scheme he was likely to announce.
Domestic tranquility has been restored. Modi spoke, and it was totally unexceptionable. Some stuff about the “new India” that is about to dawn in 2022. And a new scheme — Saubhagya. As follows:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today launched the ‘Saubhagya scheme’ to give free electricity connections to poor families in both cities and villages by 2018 with a total outlay of Rs. 16,320 crores, which will be funded largely by the centre. No poor person will have to pay for electricity connections, the Prime Minister has said.
Smoke Signals 