By Rajan Narayan

IN early August 2006 I got a call from the office of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. I was asked if I would be willing to join the prime minister for his forthcoming journey to Brazil and Cuba. Before Narendra Modi became the prime minister, journalists always accompanied the PM and the president on their official visits abroad. I had never got the opportunity as most of the time only journalists and editors from the big metro newspapers and TV channels were invited by the government officials.
Presumably because Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was travelling to Brazil and Cuba, both Portuguese-speaking countries, as the editor of the political weekly Goan Observer I was invited. I consented and was informed the official invitation would come by courier. When the invitation came I was requested to complete the formalities required and this included sending my latest passport to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) for securing the necessary visas. An elaborate security check was also required as I would be travelling on the same flight with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for almost a fortnight.
I suddenly discovered that my passport had expired. I rushed to the Regional Passport Officer N Rokade in Panjim and sought renewal of my passport. The letter from the PM’s Office worked like magic and within 24 hours I was issued my new passport. The passport had to be couriered to the PMO to get my visa.
Since it was a very long journey and the PM was a senior citizen, the journey was completed in stages. Whenever the PM travels abroad the largest Air-India plane is taken over by the PMO and the flight renamed Air-India-1. The passengers comprised only of the prime minister and his team, plus a maximum of 20 media people, security and other personal staff of the prime minister.
One third of the plane was occupied by the prime minister and his family, the national security advisor and the press advisor. Just after the PM’s section were the media people seated in business class configuration. The rest of the aircraft was taken up by the armed national security guard, the junior babu log and of course the office subordinate staff without whom no Indian PM or official can travel – these are the Class IV employees of government.
We assembled in New Delhi where I was assigned not only hotel accommodation but also a red light car at the Goa Sadan. We were asked to come for a briefing at the External Affairs Ministry. A senior official gave us our tickets and briefed us about the countries the PM’s entourage would be visiting. After a transit halt at Amsterdam which is 6,370 km from New Delhi, we would proceed to Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. From Brazil, after attending the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) Summit we would proceed to Havana in Cuba for the non-aligned summit. The distance from Amsterdam to Brazil is 7,844 km. From Brazil to Cuba it is 9,570 km and flying across the Amazon rain forests. So much so we would be travelling a distance of 47,568 km from Cuba and back to India in 15 days.
This was probably the longest foreign trip undertaken by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. We were told that we would be allowed to carry only two pieces of baggage. A large bag should be checked in and a smaller handbag could be carried in hand. During the transit halt in Amsterdam, we would not have access to our checked in baggage. We would be witnessing the BRIC summit in Brazil and the non-alliance summit in Havana Cuba.
We boarded the Air-India special aircraft on August 20, 2006. Only a curtain separated the 20 media folk from the PM’s on flight living space. However, there was a national security guard with a sten gun at the entrance of the PM’s office-cum-residence quarters in the air. Within 30 minutes of take-off the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh came out came out attired in an austere white kurta and pyjama to sit in a chair before the media people, he welcomed us on the trip and shared the significance of this visit to Brazil and Cuba. He informed us that BRIC was a very important group comprising of the biggest countries in the world, namely Brazil, Russia, India and China.
Dr Mammohan Singh also briefed us that he was scheduled to meet General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president on the sidelines of the non-aligned summit Dr Manmohan Singh expressed the hope that we would enjoy the journey. It was champagne and caviar all day long on board the aircraft. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were served also in flight. For every meal we were given a specially designed menu card reminding us that we were the guests of Air-India and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. A wide variety of vegetarian and non-vegetarian preparations were offered to us and media people could order in advance if there was something specific they would like to be served to them. Media folk ordered for their favorite food on every leg of the journey. Liquor and beverages were served 24×7, the best of wine, whiskey and vodka, unlimited.
In the evenings champagne and caviar was served. I learned that caviar is the eggs of a very rare whale species and it is one of the expensive of gourmet fare in the world. It is also an acquired taste as I learned, caviar smells, plus I am a pure vegetarian with the exception with the exception of omlets which I live on most times. The whole trip was planned in such a way that the nights were spent on the aircraft.
We arrived in the countries we were visiting in the morning, each flight stretch about 20 hours and plus. Really, equivalent to flying to New York and back three times over. The flight from Delhi to New York takes almost 24 hours. So I estimate we pretty much spent six days in the aircraft alone for the six days we spent on land in Brazil and Cuba. Among the senior journalists on the flight were M Murli, managing director and editor-in-chief of the “The Hindu.” Among the electronic media there was Barkha Dutt of NDTV (which has since been bought over by the Adani group).
There was a monitor installed in the media section which clued us about the distances in flight we were covering to the various destinations. The pilot also kept on a running commentary on the history of places and cities we were flying over. We halted in the capital of the Netherlands, Amsterdam, for a night halt. All our departures and arrivals were from military airports. So there were no complicated security checks and we could walk in and walk out of airports. In Amsterdam we were accommodated at the Hilton Hotel. The next morning we were flying to Brazil. The trip was for free but we had to pay for the hotel rooms which we occupied. The local Indian embassy organized breakfast, lunch and dinner.
After an uneventful night in Amsterdam and refreshed we were back on Air-India 1. It took us another 24 hours to reach Brazilia, the capital of Brazil. Within hours of arriving we were taken to the venue of the BRIC Summit. Our first assignment was to cover a meeting between President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and PM Manmohan Singh. At the meeting, the major Indian oil companies agreed to invest in sugarcane plantations in Brazil. This was not for making alcohol but for producing ethanol. This is a blend of petroleum and sugar molasses which is widely used in Brazil. The ratio was 60% petrol mixed with 40% ethanol. This enabled Brazil to cut down petrol and diesel prices.
India has been very slow in using ethanol to bring down petrol price. The highlight of the Brazil trip was a concert featuring the best Latin American singers and dancers and our own Remo Fernandes was specially invited to sing. I recall a lavish buffet for all invitees with senior officials of the government but alas, for the vegetarians like me there was practically nothing worth relishing – the spread was largely of meats and beef predominated in the delicacies laid out. Forget about vegetables there was no fish either.
The only vegetarian I could find was various kinds of beans, black beans. Indeed, I continued to eat beans dishes right up to Cuba. On the only free evening we had I visited a football club in Brazil. Brazil is the home of football and has over 50 academies. Young boys are admitted to the school-cum-football training centre at the age of 10. If they show promise they are taken on contract by the time they are 15. In the World Cup Football last year it was the 16-year-old player from Brazil who was the biggest sensation. I had the privilege of meeting football legends Kaka and Pere.
After a two-day stay in Brazil we proceeded to Havana in Cuba. Then and now Cuba is a small communist country very close to the United States. It was the legendry Che Guevara who led the Cuban revolution against the corrupt dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.
Cuba is a home of the best rum and the best coffee in the world. Cuba is also famous for its cigars which can cost $50 to $100 per cigars. These cigars are hand-rolled by Cuban dowagers on their sweaty thighs. Since Cuba is a communist country the salaries of both the general manager and the housekeeping staff are the same. The manager has to treat even the manager with respect and call him over for get-togethers. In some ways Cuba is very much like Goa and indeed, the hotel in which we were staying was called Miramar (meaning by-the-sea in Spanish and Portuguese).
On the beaches of Havana hundreds of young people were playing on the guitar in groups. As in the case of Goa or rather Panaji where I have been residing for over 30 years now, in Havana there is a 20 km seaside promenade. Among our guides there was a young professor of English of Havana University. She told us they got enough salary for survival. But there were no incentives for excellence. The common citizen in Cuba was comfortable because everything was available from the ration shop and this included meat, eggs and even rum. The cost of everything was subsidized. But there were no luxuries like talcum powder, lipstick eye-shadow and other cosmetics for women.
Amusingly, we had been told by the External Affairs Ministry guys to carry gifts of cosmetics for the young women guides we would meet. The women were deliriously happy to receive a small bottle of imported perfume and a few lipsticks. The Indian embassy in Cuba gifted us with bottles of blue-label Scotch and gifted my bottle to our young interpreter.
Havana City civic fathers take excellent care of their heritage structures and monumeants. The Latin quarters of Havana are a bit like our Fontainhas in Panaji and there’s a huge traditional shopping district here. You shop for coffee, rum and of course cigars to bring back to Goa. Also the Cuban formal shirt with pockets on the side, much like safari-styled shirts. I bought one for myself and dozens of T-shirts with the image of Che Guevara, the much loved revolutionary hero.
There was a lot of hand-crafted jewelry available in the traditional market and I bought a few sets for my Goan Observer staff back in Goa; I also brought back a large box of Havana cigars gifted by the Indian embassy. I must not fail to mention the outstanding medical facilities in Cuba. All the doctors were trained by Russian experts. Cuba is particularly famous for ophthalmologists.
My friend in Goa, Aravind Bhatikar, visited Cuba to see if he could get the retinal damage of his eyes rectified. Cuba is also the only country which claims to have a cure for leukoderma. Medical and healthcare services in Cuba are so inexpensive that an American documentary filmmaker took a group of 20 serious heart patients from New York to Cuba, to be treated at 50% of the cost in the US.
Among the highlights of the visit to Cuba was a very brief encounter with General Pervez Musharraf, former president of Pakistan. This was just a couple of years after the war in Kargil. India and Pakistan had broken off diplomatic relations. It may be recalled that the Pakistani army had occupied a strategic peak in Ladakh. The Indian army had to push it and recapture the Kargil area. Dr Manmohan Singh and General Musharraf were under pressure to open a dialogue to restore the normalcy between Pakistan and India.
Both the Pakistan and Indian media besides the International press were taken to a private banquet hall in a seven-star hotel. The media was allowed to take photos of a historic handshake between Manmohan Singh and Pervez Musharraf. While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh looked very grim and refused to smile General Musharraf was very relaxed and greeted the Indian media people. Musharraf would have been happy to talk to the Indian media but was prevented from doing so by Indian diplomatic officials.
We were also lucky to have a historic meeting with President Fidel Castro of Cuba. It was Fidel Castro who took over control of Cuba because Che Guevara was not interested in power. Fidel Castro was not in good health but he was very warm towards the Indian media during the visit to meet him.
One unfortunate part of landing and taking off only from defense airports is that there is no scope for duty-free shopping. We were requested to provide a shopping list to the Air-India staff. Foreign exchange is always a problem for editors of small time media like “Goan Observer.” Still during the course of the trip I managed to shop for some exquisite Swarovski crystal jewelry and a radiant red pashmina shawl for my wife in Goa. Pashmina you must know is made from the fleece of a rare Himalayan goat. It keeps you very warm and is so softly delicate that it may pass through a finger ring with ease.