The world’s most photogenic politician, Justin Trudeau, has had a cropper of a trip to India. Dressed like every firang ever at a desi wedding – Trudeau always looked like the gatecrasher, and never a guest. Here are a few takeaways from the misadventure — decoded and deciphered by our experts at hand.
1. Bling Watch
As the Trudeau family marched out in clothes sourced from Maganlal Dresswallah, Indians binge watched on the biggest explosion of bling since Kyunki Saas bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. It was a subliminal tribute to the I&B Minister Smriti Irani. Nobody got that. Least of all – her. Sigh.
2. Photobomb and Scoot!
With the Trudeaus being photographed with a separatist convicted of terrorism, you could see they take photo‘bombing’ quite literally. If you must be photobombed, let it be with a person with the right credentials (someone who has demonstrated capability of carrying out sundry violent acts) as opposed to a defaulting billionaire jeweller in Davos.
3. Distraction Dressing
Justin Trudeau did his homework well. He knew this was a country which obsesses over and gets sidetracked by ‘suit boot ki sarkar’ and Burberry jackets.
This was how his conversation probably went, “Sophie hon, we gotta just treat this like we were going for a marathon fancy dress competition. Or you know Diversity Night in Toronto. Wear these loud Indian shirt dresses, get their lungis in a knot – and they are not going to notice how we are handing out dinner invites to secessionists. And when in doubt, just do the bhangra…. you don’t even need to know how to actually dance do that.”
(The above dialogue is an imagined version of how Canadians talk based on watching The Proposal where Sandra Bullock played a Canadian, just like Justin Trudeau dressed up like an Indian based on one viewing of Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham.)
4. Bollywood Selfie Diversion
That Justin Trudeau chose to come to Mumbai before Delhi, and chose to meet Shahrukh Khan before NaMo is a dead giveaway. Yet another master stroke in deflecting the attention away from their support to separatist groups.
Alas, this is where Bollywood failed miserably — there was no deluge of Ed Sheeran style selfies where all of B-town tried their hand at throttling Trudeau. For that, you got to get Farah Khan to throw you a party. The few photos that made it to the world wide web featured slightly embarrassed film stars wondering why no one told them it was Justin Trudeau’s wedding that they were attending.
5. The Final Straw
Battered and bruised, towards the end of his rather longish vacay official trip, PM Modi finally acknowledged Justin’s presence in India, but hinted that the Trudeau kids were better company. *Ouch*
This was the final straw – but by then Justin was drowning and you know what drowning men do with any kind of straw. Grasp it. It is reliably learnt he spent the rest of the day trying to get Ella Grace to remember who NaMO was.
6. The Final Rapprochement
Finally, on the 6th day of an official 8-day visit, Trudeau met the PM of the country. You got to hand it to the guy for work-life balance. The PM enveloped him in a bear hug — but don’t read too much into that. It can be reliably reported that it was just giant relief at Trudeau not wearing a sherwani this time.
Meanwhile, Justin probably has some work at hand fixing his marriage once he finally returns home. Mrs Trudeau made her displeasure at being togged out in garish clothes all along quite publicly – she turned up in her pyjama suit to meet the PM. (Still better than Justin’s sherwanis)
7. Unwitting Beneficiary
While the jury is still out on what this trip did for Indo-Canada ties, a brand which had nothing to do with anything got the maximum recall. Yeah, that OTT brand Virat and Anushkha didn’t wear to their nuptials got a photogenic brand ambassador in Justin Trudeau. For Free.
(Naomi Datta consumes Bollywood voraciously and tweets at nowme_datta.)
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