At home with the classes and the masses
The sight of Prime Minister John Key working the crowds in New Delhi and Mumbai would have been the envy of many an Indian politician. He reached out to people wherever he went and the people reciprocated wholeheartedly.
He was equally at ease dealing with starchy, Khadi-clad ministers and their fawning boffins in New Delhi’s stodgy corridors of power as he was lunching with corporate chieftains in the rarefied air of the capital’s super luxury hotels.
He showed a disarmingly warm and informal side when he mingled with a bunch of New Delhi’s street children who had come good thanks to efforts of a committed NGO that had been funded by New Zealand aid money. And he was all spontaneity when he hit the studio floor in Mumbai’s Film City mingling with top Bollywood stars and Mumbai’s tinsel town paparazzi as a thousand cameras flashed.
At Delhi’s Firozeshah Kotla stadium he batted away with finesse even hitting a couple of fours to Stephen Fleming’s bowling, though Fleming later gave him an impromptu lesson in correctness of stance on the plane while flying back to New Zealand.
As well as playing out there in the middle, he mingled with the group of the city’s disadvantaged children who had gathered to meet him at the function prior to the game, where he announced sports scholarships and distributed prizes and mementoes.
In a previous meeting, the Prime Minister had mentioned to me that Bishen Singh Bedi was one of his childhood heroes and he would often pretend to be Bedi and imitate his bowling style in the backyard of his home in Christchurch during his school days.
When Bishen Bedi turned up at the Kotla, Mr Key struck up a long conversation with him, remembering some of the great moments in his playing career as another India veteran Madan Lal looked on. Both Bedi and Madan Lal were members of the Delhi and Districts Cricket Associations as are Virender Sehwag, Virat Kohli and a number of other greats, both past and present.
In Mumbai’s Film City all it took directors Abbas-Mustan to train the Prime Minister in clapper boarding was thirty seconds – with a little help from Abhishek Bachchan himself. “Action,” Mr Key said loud and clear as the cameras rolled for the brief shot of the film Players, large parts of which had been shot in New Zealand.
He connected easily with the crowds, the film technicians and the hundred-odd members of the fiercely competitive Indian entertainment sector media. He told them New Zealand welcomed Indian production houses to come and shoot in its scenic locales as the audience cheered.
Unlike New Zealand or other western countries, Indian society is intensely stratified: there are layers and layers of classes – all with different sensibilities, different levels of accomplishments, different social and economic status, different educational levels and so on.
But to reach out to a range of people in different situations during the course of such a short visit and elicit a warm reciprocation from all of them is indeed an achievement – something that seems to come naturally to Mr Key. Which is indeed a desirable attribute dealing with a country like India.
The sight of Prime Minister John Key working the crowds in New Delhi and Mumbai would have been the envy of many an Indian politician. He reached out to people wherever he went and the people reciprocated wholeheartedly.
He was equally at ease dealing with starchy, Khadi-clad ministers and their...
The sight of Prime Minister John Key working the crowds in New Delhi and Mumbai would have been the envy of many an Indian politician. He reached out to people wherever he went and the people reciprocated wholeheartedly.
He was equally at ease dealing with starchy, Khadi-clad ministers and their fawning boffins in New Delhi’s stodgy corridors of power as he was lunching with corporate chieftains in the rarefied air of the capital’s super luxury hotels.
He showed a disarmingly warm and informal side when he mingled with a bunch of New Delhi’s street children who had come good thanks to efforts of a committed NGO that had been funded by New Zealand aid money. And he was all spontaneity when he hit the studio floor in Mumbai’s Film City mingling with top Bollywood stars and Mumbai’s tinsel town paparazzi as a thousand cameras flashed.
At Delhi’s Firozeshah Kotla stadium he batted away with finesse even hitting a couple of fours to Stephen Fleming’s bowling, though Fleming later gave him an impromptu lesson in correctness of stance on the plane while flying back to New Zealand.
As well as playing out there in the middle, he mingled with the group of the city’s disadvantaged children who had gathered to meet him at the function prior to the game, where he announced sports scholarships and distributed prizes and mementoes.
In a previous meeting, the Prime Minister had mentioned to me that Bishen Singh Bedi was one of his childhood heroes and he would often pretend to be Bedi and imitate his bowling style in the backyard of his home in Christchurch during his school days.
When Bishen Bedi turned up at the Kotla, Mr Key struck up a long conversation with him, remembering some of the great moments in his playing career as another India veteran Madan Lal looked on. Both Bedi and Madan Lal were members of the Delhi and Districts Cricket Associations as are Virender Sehwag, Virat Kohli and a number of other greats, both past and present.
In Mumbai’s Film City all it took directors Abbas-Mustan to train the Prime Minister in clapper boarding was thirty seconds – with a little help from Abhishek Bachchan himself. “Action,” Mr Key said loud and clear as the cameras rolled for the brief shot of the film Players, large parts of which had been shot in New Zealand.
He connected easily with the crowds, the film technicians and the hundred-odd members of the fiercely competitive Indian entertainment sector media. He told them New Zealand welcomed Indian production houses to come and shoot in its scenic locales as the audience cheered.
Unlike New Zealand or other western countries, Indian society is intensely stratified: there are layers and layers of classes – all with different sensibilities, different levels of accomplishments, different social and economic status, different educational levels and so on.
But to reach out to a range of people in different situations during the course of such a short visit and elicit a warm reciprocation from all of them is indeed an achievement – something that seems to come naturally to Mr Key. Which is indeed a desirable attribute dealing with a country like India.
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