Vajpayee takes a break, Manali becomes PMO

Amid hot weather on the ground and in the air, the Prime Minister is in Manali to cool off. This is his fourth Himachal holiday in a row in ...

Amid hot weather on the ground and in the air, the Prime Minister is in Manali to cool off. This is his fourth Himachal holiday in a row in as many years.

A.B. Vajpayee may try to restrain his public engagements to the maximum. But in times when engagements across the border threaten, the PM is on a hotline to the PMO in Delhi. And the state has wired him up with as many as 12 ISD lines — all overloaded with calls from heads of states.

In the best of times, the poet PM always found some time for verse. Like when the Congress was ruling in HP, Vajpayee wrote: ‘‘Manali mat jayo gori raja kay raj mein (Visit not Manali for the white king rules).’’ The raja was Virbhadra Singh.

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He didn’t fail to take a potshot at the state’s communications then. ‘‘Asman mein bijli zyada, ghar main bijli kum, telephone ghumate jaao zyadatar gumsum, bulati tumhen Manali (Electricity in the sky, Powercuts at home, Dial dead telephones, And listen to Manali’s call).’’

This time round, he won’t have to contend with dead phones or a dark house or even dash off a sharp doggerel. Everthing’s in place now, and security cover around his cottage is so thick that much of the discussions at the temporary PMO here can’t cut through.

Times have changed the 1,000-odd securitymen in town too reflect the tense times. Even an occasion such as the cultural show today by Himalaya Buddhist Cultural Association for PM’s ‘‘dirghayu aur yashkirti’’ wound up with the PM talking about Pakistan’s missile tests.