Stars and stripes alive and well

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, SEPT. 28. Time and tide, they say, wait for none. So do certain programmes, never mind if the heavens fall and the earth shakes.

This is what happened to a team of young Indian politicians on a recent tour of the United States, where the heavens did fall and the earth shook. "We had just finished our first engagement of the day when all hell broke loose," said Mr. Ravula Chandrasekhara Reddy, Telugu Desam spokesman and member of the team, referring to the Terror Tuesday events at the Pentagon, "barely a few furlongs from where we stood and watched black smoke billowing toward the skies."

Mr. Reddy, who by then learnt of the attack on the WTC towers in New York, thought `it is the end of our trip'. Two hours after the Pentagon fire, he wanted to know the fate of other programmes. `There is no change, sir. Entire programme stands', the host explained to the `shocked' visitors, no strangers to postponements and cancellations to much smaller provocationms. `They were bent upon fulfilling all engagements' , Mr. Reddy said.

In Washington, the visitors were bowled over by a State department official, no doubt an American, greeting them with a `Endaro mahanubhavulu, andariki vandanamulu' in near chaste Telugu. The host explained that he had worked in Visakhapatnam long ago.

Even as an unprecedented wave of patriotism sweeps across the United States, the stars and stripes flutter everywhere. The Indian leaders, watching a baseball match in Atlanta, were handed a small-sized American flag. A closer look by Mr. Chandrasekhara Reddy showed `Made in China' in small print!. That is a measure of penetration and spread of Chinese enterprise, even in a capitalist world.

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Section  : Southern States
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