Unfortunately, Tharoor’s intrinsic charm, his educated glamour fails to work outside the abovementioned circles. When it comes to the ‘mango people,’ or “cattle class” in Tharoor’s now retracted lexicon, his polish has an unintended and opposite effect. It, in fact, alienates him from the majority, who prefer the statue-erecting Mayawati or the hysterical Mamata to the newly inducted Minister of State for Human Resource Development. Yet his profile is custom-made for the Congress party, which has always taken pride in inducting the crème de la crème and perpetuating the rule of the bourgeoisie, while sloganeering for the ‘aam aadmi.’

Nevertheless, as Congress has painstakingly realised, Shashi Tharoor is the ideal diplomat, but only a fledgling politician, particularly in the Indian scenario.

And thanks to Tharoor, his third wife Sunanda Pushkar becomes the target of wily politicians milking the ‘Tharoor cow of jokes.’ Despite the IPL money laundering allegations for floating the stillborn Kochi franchise, Pushkar, then his girlfriend, and Tharoor had managed to extricate themselves from the mess by vehemently denying any ‘sweat equity’ profitmaking, although Tharoor had to resign from his then held post as the Minster of State in the Ministry of External Affairs after the Congress core committee asked for it. This was in April 2010. In August that year, Tharoor and Pushkar got married in a traditional Keralite wedding.

So, the appellation “50 crore girlfriend” hurled now at Sunanda Pushkar, by Narendra Modi, and corrected to “100 crore girlfriend” by Lalit Modi, the disgraced ex IPL supremo, just comes across as a jibe made in bad taste. What’s the point of sneering now, not because the girlfriend is now the wife, but price-tagging a woman is simply demeaning. But of course, as Pushkar says, we do not expect an apology from the Minister of Pogrom and Communal Massacres, do we?

The chirpy Tharoor has been tweeting his 140-character responses effectively. The retort was short and sweet: “My wife is worth a lot more than your imaginary 50 crores. She is priceless. But you need2be able2love some1 2understand that.” All those ‘2’s inserted in Tharoor’s perfectly pitched English as an afterthought, ostensibly to fit in within the tweet word limit. Shashi, a pro at embracing the brave new world of technology and politicking on virtual media, seems to have writhed inside a little bit at the new look of his tweet, which now resembles one coming from a mawkish teenager caught in a school love brawl.

That is not to say that Pushkar-Tharoor’s ‘public display of affection’ and Pushkar’s saccharine sweet habit of video-recording every one of Tharoor’s public talks on her smartphone are above some mild humour themselves. In fact, they are excellent stuff for some intelligent satire and piercing cartoons. Given the Tharoors’ proven track record of maintaining their buoyant sense of humour, they would at most have a hearty laugh at a tastefully written piece of burlesque or deftly depicted caricature. But what the two Modis have done amounts to casting calumnies and aspersions, which is thoroughly uncalled for.

High profile love stories have been flooding the international political stage as well. The Obamas coochiecoo on camera all the time, and after a point, it becomes tedious. The juicier stuff, however, comes from our own neighbourhood. The alleged love affair between Pakistan’s uberchic Foreign Minister, the 34-year-old Hina Rabbani Khar and the 24-year-old president of Pakistan People’s Party, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, grabbed the headlines months back. Apparently, they were caught in a compromising position and by none other than Asif Ali Zardari himself, that too in the Presidential Palace. Rabbani, hitherto known for her Louis Vuitton handbags and supermodel good looks, has added another feather to her unconventional cap. Perhaps, more than Bilawal and his sister, she’s the perfect successor to the charm and clout of the late Benazir Bhutto, who was herself an epitome of beauty merged with political acumen.

The Tharoor-Pushkar love story reminds me a tad bit of the Nicholas Sarkozy-Carla Bruni affair. It had the same flair of inviting media attention, was often portrayed in a negative light. Perhaps, that’s the price of going public with love. It’s a lot of labour in the first place, and it attracts mockery. Yet hidden behind all that scorn is an understream of jealousy, that love’s labour is not lost. Aren’t we all slightly envious of Mr. and Mrs. Tharoor ourselves? (IPA Service)