From the Editor in Chief


	April 3, 2000

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For all these years, to be anti-American was to prove your credentials as a patriot. In recent times we've accepted American pop culture, but fiercely resisted their world view. It was easy to do because we felt ignored. The pent up resentment was temporarily washed away by a wellspring of charm unleashed on India by William Jefferson Clinton. So successful was this charming of India that we put Clinton on the cover for the second week running. Clinton and his big, easy smile and warm, personal manner charmed everyone he met, from politicians to the bellboys at his hotel in Delhi. And did they want to meet him. Even Delhi's chatterati, used to driving up in their Mercs and BMWs, allowed themselves to be loaded into a bus so they could attend an exclusive reception at the American ambassador's house. India's elected representatives -- many of whom rail frequently against the US -- fell over themselves, pushed and shoved to shake his hand. It was a lesson in public relations, and it was all done under an unprecedented, but unobtrusive security cover that included three planeloads of equipment.

That watertight security made the logistics of covering the great Clinton yatra difficult. We deployed correspondents and photographers in Delhi, Jaipur and Agra, pit stops on the Big B's travels. One of them, Principal Correspondent Sayantan Chakravarty, became a target of Clinton's minders in Agra. Chakravarty was idly talking with other journalists about Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden when the Secret Service picked it up on one of their sophisticated listening devices. Soon he was being questioned by the local police. Says a vastly amused Chakravarty: "I was later told that a four-man team of Marines and Secret Service agents kept a close eye on me." As India bent over backwards to welcome him, Clinton in turn exuded enough warmth to thaw the deep freeze of the past. It's up to us to translate that spring thaw into the summer of a new era.

(Aroon Purie)

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