FOREIGN AFFAIRS

SORRY, NO LOVE IN THE LAND OF THE TAJ

BY MANUWANT CHOUDHARY

French President Nicolas Sarkozy's love affair with Supermodel Carla Bruni has the Indian government in a tizzy and they are not sure how to treat the Presidents girlfriend when they arrive to attend India's Republic Day parade.
But Indian newspapers and TV channels may finally get the eyeballs they so desperately need and definitely this years Republic Day parade will hopefully be a love parade rather than a parade of missiles aimed at neighbouring Pakistan.
The photo-op will also not be the parade ground but the couple in front of the Taj Mahal, a masouleum built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in loving memory of his wife Noor Jahan.
But India's politicians say Shah Jahan did that for his wife, not would be wife!
Now newspapers quoting government sources say the Indian government is going to ask the French government to decide Carla's status, although the President has formally asked Carla for marriage.
Live-in relationships have the traditional Congress Party livid and even Hindi Bollywood films on live-in relationships are shot outside in Australia.
But what politicians do not know about Indian culture is what an activist working in West Bengal's Nandigram discovered. "The villagers there are allowed to select their own girl and even live-in with her for months as long as they eventually get married."
Carla is herself a left-wing supporter and she did not even vote for the President and I am surprised the Indian communists are silent on the issue considering they want to be consulted on every foreign `affair'.