A new problem is staring our politicians in the face. The problem of practicing austerity. Being used to leading a life of luxury, it may be rather hard on them to climb down from their ivory tower perch but willy-nilly they have to fall in line with their High Command. Specially Congress High Command for it all started with the Congress.

To get to the genesis, thanks to a report in the Delhi Indian Express that broke the story of how our new Foreign Minister S. M. Krishna from Karnataka, a rich man by birth, who had studied in America which was a wow experience for the poor of those days, who is sarcastically, if not derisively, called “Oxford Krishna” was living in a five - star hotel paying Rs. One lakh rent a day.

Mr. S. M. Krishna, Mr. Shashi Tharoor and Mr. C. B. Aiyappa

Similarly his junior Shashi Tharoor, a former Deputy Secretary General of the UN, long used to five-star luxury, too followed his master's example by staying in another five - star hotel paying Rs. 40, 000 per day. Unfortunately, Tharoor did not become his master’s voice. If he had, he would not be in the jam he is in and there would have been no need for him to seek a pardon by apologising to secure a reprieve from Sonia Gandhi. He had almost lost his job.

It was the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh who could understand the hidden humour in Tharoor’s controversial statement about austerity when asked about it:
"Absolutely, I would travel in cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows."

Suddenly everybody took umbrage, even offence, to Tharoor’s remark made with a smile and a subtle sense of humour suggesting that he too would fall in line with the Congress austerity brigade as “ordered” by the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

It is strange that though all our politicians have gone on junketeering to America and most of them know English, none could understand the joke that was except Dr. Manmohan Singh. It is time the Prime Minister took a class on “joke appreciation” for his Ministers and other Congress leaders including Sonia Gandhi and Ashok Gehlot, the Chief Minister of Rajasthan, who wanted Tharoor to quit as a Minister for his controversial remarks. I think Gehlot should have been an Arab and a Minister in Saudi Arabia!

Recently, I was speaking to Mr. C. B. Aiyappa, former Chairman and MD of International Instruments Ltd., Bangalore, who had earlier worked for the UN at New York for a few years. Our conversation veered to Shashi Tharoor's “cattle class” remark. Aiyappa had a hearty laugh at our inability to understand humour in some of our expressions.

In America passenger trains have a compartment exclusively for carrying horses of the passengers like we have a separate compartment for carrying our pet animals like dogs etc. Gandhiji too used to take his nanny goat in this compartment (or may be, for his goat an exclusive one) as he drank only goat’s milk.

In America, the tramps and hippies, unable to pay the fare, would travel in this class commonly called cattle class, for cattle too are carried in this class along with the owner-passenger. Hence, for Tharoor having been in America all his life and used to speaking only English, it is but natural to speak English like any White American would, like we speak our mother tongue, using the American metaphors, slangs and idioms. Unfortunately he spoke that language in a country where it went over the heads of all the Heads of the Congress party except Dr. Manmohan Singh who too was in UN and World Bank in New York for many years.

Now the “holy cow” part. India is known for worshipping cows which are considered holy. Kamadhenu. Hence holy cow. Like the phrase “Boston Brahmin” in American English, here too we use the phrase “holy cow” to describe those who are “puritans” or pose as some one who is socially and culturally superior — simple living and high thinking kind. That Tharoor could embellish his English drawing on such phrases to such magical effect must be admired rather than criticised; making it a cause for admonition. This is a classic example of “language appreciation gap” like the clichéd “generation gap!”

I also wonder why Congress men and women (exceptions apart) took offence to the use of the phrase “cattle class” when we in India worship cattle and have legislation to protect them from being slaughtered. Actually Congressmen should be happy that they travel in “cattle class” which is the class in which their political Guru Mahatma Gandhi travelled.

Be that as it may, my conversation with the venerable gentleman Aiyappa continued in this strain when he recalled a personal similar incident in India which he thought was a gaffe, like some thought “cattle class” was Tharoor’s gaffe.

It appears, Aiyappa went to the Railway ticketing counter to buy a first class ticket and stood in the queue. He found the clerk a slow coach — taking too much time to issue ticket and there was very little time left for the train to chug out.

Restless as he watched the clerk fumbling to calculate the figures to issue ticket, Aiyappa looked over the shoulder of the man in front and told the clerk to hurry suggesting at the same time to keep a Ready Reckoner.

The clerk, arrogant like most government and public sector employees, looked up and shot back: Do you know everything?
The humbled former UN official said that he had traveled extensively and worked in big organisations.
The Railway babu was not amused. He was not the one to be cowed down that easily. He shouted back: Have you worked in Railways?
Well, that was a long shot. A bouncer, in cricketing parlance. But our American smart Alec Aiyappa was a good fielder. He fielded with great aplomb, in the spirit of an American Apache.

Aiyappa said: My dear friend, you don’t have to be a donkey to know all about a donkey.

The whole hell broke loose. The clerk got up from his seat ignoring the lengthening queue and yelled as if he was being physically torn apart: You have insulted me. I am not a donkey. You are a donkey. I will complain against you to my superintendent.

Livid with anger, he became hysterical and left the place creating a commotion that finally ended with Aiyappa the American - returned apologising. With this, probably, the image of the clerk as a donkey got erased!

In retrospect, Aiyappa told me that it was possible that he made a mistake in using the word “donkey”. Instead, he said, he should have used the word “elephant”, an animal that is worshipped being associated with Lord Ganesha apart from being used in our language as a metaphor for strength, patience, obedience and good memory (elephantine memory).

Well, well. If only Shashi Tharoor had used instead of the words “cattle class” the words “Gandhi class”, I bet not a lip would have parted to rail him. Actually, in Indian parlance he should have used the words “Gandhi class”. But what to do. Sigh. He used an American slang for austerity in traveling. I wonder what metaphor Tharoor would have used for austerity in life - style! Joy Ho!