There’s a tremendous sense of hope and anticipation now that Kamala Harris’s been announced as Joe Biden’s running mate, and to many, she’s already occupied the high post of VP!
“This is like a marriage alliance!” said a friend from Mumbai as we decided to mix half a mug of coffee from Starbucks and another half from Indian Coffee House, “History is full of such alliances. Why in 1661 our own Mumbai, was given as dowry for an alliance between England’s Charles II and Princess Catherine of Portugal and see how the city has developed! And it has all come from the repeated efforts of our present leaders constantly hugging Trump, and each hug, getting us closer to Washington, see, finally we will have a desi in the White House!”
I tried to explain that Trump was a Republican and Kamala a Democrat but he waived me to silence, “You have no idea how these alliances are worked out!” he said with a wink.
A telephone call to another friend in Chennai, had my mobile sizzling with bursts of exuberance, “Imagine America speaking in Tamil!” he gushed. “With this, our three language policy in our country is finished. It will now become just two languages; Tamil and English!”
“You think our education ministry will agree?” I asked.
“How else will they converse with the Americans?” asked my friend, “Our Kamalamma will see that all of us in the south will finally be understood by the rest of the world! Bad enough everyone calls us thampi, even when we are anna!”
My friend from Delhi, did not pick up my call immediately, but after repeated attempts I got through, “We are still wondering how much leverage we can get out of this!” he said slowly, “We first thought we’d give some National Awards to some of her family members this Independence Day, but we’ve been told to do it later, as you know many Americans don’t wear masks!”
“But her family here is Indian!” I protested.
“American influence is huge!” said my friend knowingly, “Anyway we have some other plans on the anvil!”
“Do tell me please!” I said.
“For one, we want her to feel comfortable in our country!”
“Excellent!” I said, “So how do you plan to do that?”
“Luckily because of the pandemic, the work for the new Parliament had been delayed, and thank heavens for that! Now we plan to design our Parliament to look like the White House, so Kamala can feel at home with us!”
“But the Vice-President doesn’t live in the White House!” I said.
“These are futuristic plans!” said my friend, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go for a virtual renaming of our president’s house..”
“To what?” I asked.
“Kamala Devi Bhavan!” said my friend putting off his phone.
Like I said, already crowned, Kamala Devi Harris, sure has a huge following here..!

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