Diplomatic in Delhi

‘Michio,’ thunders the lady, blowing out thick red-painted lips like a coquette, smiling. ‘You’ve put on weight. My friends also tell me I’m getting fat.’ She’s being nice, and evidently wants the world to know it, so everyone seated in the large member’s bar at India Habitat Centre in Delhi hears it.

Michio, a portly Japanese gentleman, and a professional diplomat, shrinks inside his linen jacket.

‘So Michio, will you be going to Paris next month?’ her husband, all stripes and gold frame glasses, laughs loudly through the query. ‘We’re going.’ These too are diplomats. In diplomacy, you’re evidently supposed to smile and laugh as you talk, so as to not offend others. But wars still happen.

‘Do you want to buy her a sari?” blowfish-lady says, still smiling. ‘How tall is she? This is important for the petticoat.’ Michio evidently mumbles something. ‘Five feet?’ she bellows heartily. ‘How much is that in inches? I’m more comfortable in metres and centimetres. Don’t Japanese deal in metric?’

Michio is like a roll of anaemic sushi, ever deeper in his jacket. It’s just his face that’s red. I inadvertently catch his eye, but act blank-faced to save his face, and turn to the house TV to watch Rafael Nadal take apart Roger Federer at the French Open.

At least Indian worldview has expanded in the few short years when Indian passports were objects of derision at immigration stations around much of the world. A meek-looking Japanese gentleman, this one a tourist, was ahead of me in the security queue at Delhi’s international airport.

His misfortune was that he carried labels that said “Banana Republic”. The smartly dressed policeman stopped him. ‘What country is that?’ he shouted, all efficiency. He had a point. After all, my carry-on bag didn’t have a tag that proclaimed, “Republic of India”.

He was allowed to pass after finally showing his cherry-red Japanese passport, the geopolitical argument of this hitherto-unknown nation, with the help of a substantial population of the departure lounge, being settled with Banana Republic revealed as an American clothing and accessories firm. And so, an incident was averted.

I hope he returned. I hope Michio returns, recovered from volume, and petticoats for his five-foot tall spouse. We have much to show. The Banana Republic is today a self-proclaimed superpower in the making. We’re shouting it to the world.