When you meet your friend after, say, four months, how many times do you hug him ? Once or twice may be par for the course. But six times ? Well that was the hug count for the Modi-Trump love-fest on day one of the US President’s visit to India.
Of course, in many ways, everything was over-the-top—the crowds lining the streets to the jam-packed Motera Stadium, the walkabout in the Taj Mahal, and effusive remarks Modi and Trump threw at each other.
We know, of course, that Trump has taken great pleasure in the adulation of what he thought were millions of people and the visit to the Taj Mahal. But he also got important brownie points with the Gujarati-American electorate in some key states back home.