Blinkered

You could tell she had arrived by the wacka-wacka-wacka. I’d never before seen or heard a helicopter in the skies over Pondicherry. Her Excellency, Shrimati Pratibha Devisingh Patil, President of India, was in town for the better part of two days.

One could not have helped but learn of her visit well in advance. The Government of Pondicherry, which hasn’t had sufficient money in its coffers to pay the city’s garbage collectors for the last five months, was on a mad shopping-spree, knocking itself out to beautify every inch of streetscape on which the presidential eye might glance during her minutely choreographed visit.