Time Magazine Editor

ack, unpack, repack! Will India be hot, cold or rainy? I really did not want to go but how can I ignore 257 speaking invitations, 21 doctorates and other honours which I did not know even existed. These are more than the Nobel and Pulitzer put together. My journalistic coup was calling Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh an ‘underachiever’ and unwilling to stick his neck out to solve his nation’s problems. We in Time go for objectivity. Way back in the 1930s, our founder-editor Henry Luce rewrote every single word filed by our China correspondent, Teddy White, and America learnt that China was the Yellow Peril. For we Time editors know everything. Our great presidents like Nixon, Reagan, Bush and others stuck their necks out to ‘save democracy’ in Vietnam, Iraq and tinpot dictatorships in Latin America. So our calling Manmohan an ‘underachiever’ was fully justified.

Look at the jubilation in the BJp, particularly in Gujarat, that wonderful state ruled by that overachiever Narendra Modi. It towers over other states in everything, including per capita consumption of ice-cream! We in Time are proud that the Manmohan Singh issue, translated into Gujarati, sold five million copies. It is now a school text in the state, people testifying in courts swear on it now. English TV channels debated the ‘underachiever’ theme 5,448 times, at least six anchors were hospitalised for sore throats for zestfully discussing the PM’s future after the Time judgement. All these showed how much the Indian media and people cared for and respected Time.

And they have no choice but to, for the US and Time are overachievers. There was so much talk of corruption in India which led to Singh’s underachievement. Our presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney, does not care a bit about his off shore investments. The US overachieved because our Supreme Court, unlike that of India, was packed with political appointees. The judges did not retire but died carrying their convictions to their grave. We can go on and on but everyone knows how great we are. And Time is proud to be part of our overachieving, balanced media. Some 10 years back, we published a great objective cover story on the then Indian PM, Vajpayee, referring to his boozing, falling asleep during meetings, waddling on wobbly knees. Strangely, the Indian media didn’t like that piece one bit.

Finally, an idea for India to become a nation of overachievers—its leaders must confide to the media. Hugh Sidey, our famous White House correspondent for decades, once revealed a Kennedy conversation where the president told him that despite his love for words, it was only after coming to the Senate and then the White House that he learnt to spell ‘fornication’. So there.

The Mumbai-based satirist is the creator of ‘Trishanku’; E-mail your secret diarist: vgangadhar70 AT gmail.com