NEW DELHI, DEC 5:Dec 4: India Habitat Centre. Inaugurate the French Film Festival in India.Dec 2: Siri Fort Auditorium. Light the inaugural lamp, and speak a few words at the premiere of Mahesh Mathai's Bhopal Express.Dec 1: National Stadium. Inaugurate the Asia Cup Women's Hockey Tournament.Dec 1: Institute of Parliamentary Studies. Present a lecture on the legislative powers of the President.Nov 27: Delhi Tennis Association. Be chief guest at the closing ceremony of the Asia Cup Tennis Tournament.Nov 25: 2, Krishna Menon Marg. Make an appearance at the wedding reception of Mulayam Singh Yadav's son.Nov 25: India International Centre Annexe. Make an appearance at the unveiling of netart.com, a new website.Nov 24: India Habitat Centre. Inaugurate a six-day millennium exhibition of cartoons by Ranga.Nov 23: Gurudwara Rakab Ganj. Speak at the 530th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak.That's a leaf out of our newInformation and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley's engagements diary over the past two weeks. A lesser minister might experience ribbon-cutting-fatigue, or risk serious media over-exposure, but not Jaitley, who's already been-there, done-that on television.Since he was inducted into the new government in October, Jaitley hasn't had a single day's respite from public appearances, and the flood of invitations doesn't seem to have slowed to a trickle yet. ``There have been days when I've attended up to five functions a day,'' he confirms.Not that he minds. ``Out of the invitations I get, I choose the few that are close to me,'' explains the BJP's most telegenic face. Obviously, a lot of issues are close to Jaitley's heart, going by the sheer variety of functions he attends. One day, it's a women's hockey tournament. Another day, it's an art exhibition at Ghungroo, the discotheque at Maurya Sheraton. In between, he manages to squeeze in time to speak at Delhi University functions (Nov 5), sit throughFICCI seminars (Nov 20), and pose for shutterbugs at big weddings (Nov 25). He even flew out to Mumbai to inaugurate a film festival, and will soon be heading to Film City in Hyderabad.It might be that not much is happening on the Information and Broadcasting front, but Jaitley has another reason for it: ``Constituency pressures, more than ministry work, take up a lot of a minister's time. Since I don't have a constituency, I'm able to spend that time attending functions where I'm invited.''And though he admits that all the vigorous hand-shaking and impromptu speech-making do ``tire me out'', Jaitley loves the ongoing felicitation. ``Though most of the events I go to don't conform to my original discipline (law), the interaction, and the information I pick up, is useful for my own development and growth,'' he explains, adding that his ``easy accessibility'' might be another reason why he gets invited all the time.It's no surprise either that the media-savvy Jaitley follows some ground rules whenmaking public appearances.``One, don't commit improprieties, and be careful about what you do. Two, your activities must be bona fide and acceptable to the media. Three, you've got to be able to package your point in a minimum of words,'' he rolls off, clearly having learnt his lesson from predecessor Pramod Mahajan's fate. So that even if scribes are sick of seeing you at every do, they can't rip into you. Considering he doesn't even wine and dine when he goes out - ``I'm a teetotaller and I usually eat at home'' - Jaitley, who's practised law for 22 years, doesn't leave much leeway for gaffes.So, is there any kind of invitation he would turn down? ``I look at the credentials of the organisation inviting me before accepting.'' That's Jaitley's ``ethical base'', he says.
