Forget the Bear Hug and the Eulogies, Here’s What Makes Me Adore a PM on Tour
MORE than two-decades-plus-a-little-over-6-years ago, as I sat down in the entrance examination hall that would pick 21 candidates who would, for the ensuing two years, learn the ins and outs of journalism, I had no idea as to whether I would get myself enrolled for the same. For, journalism was nothing more than The Hindu, Sportstar, Frontline and the Illustrated Weekly of India to me till then. These four publications were more than the world to me, who hailed from one of the remotest, godforsaken corners of Tamil Nadu. Having born in the cusp of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, known otherwise as Kanya Kumari district, I inherited a mother tongue that was alien to the Tamil brethren who went to school with me. Malayalam was the spoken tongue at home, while the nuns-run convent school I went to, made sure I spoke, dreamt, and imagined things, only in English. The convent school, manned by the women in Christianity’s divine robes, taught me how important English was, and will be,