One often hears of an MP's "precipitous drop" in political fortunes, but I hadn't expected to illustrate the metaphor so physically on the steps of Parliament on Wednesday. Having spent decades navigating the slippery slopes of policy and the treacherous inclines of debate, it was, quite ironically, a simple marble step that proved to be my undoing.
One has often been warned about the dangers of "shooting oneself in the foot" in the political arena, but I have managed the far more literal, if slightly less dignified, feat of tripping over it. It was a singular, unassuming step outside the House that finally brought me low - in full view, mortifyingly, of the television cameras.
My initial reaction was to make light of it, quote-tweeting a video-post of the incident with a Hindi couplet: "Jis diye ko toofaan me jalna hoga, usey sambhal sambhal ke chalna hoga" ("a lamp that must stay lit in a storm must watch its step"), and adding, "I am okay." Except that, as I found out when I got an X-ray done the next morning, I wasn't.
A "Bottom-Up" View
I had initially hoped my tweet - invoking that resilient lamp braving the storm - would be the final word on the matter. Alas, the medical profession has a way of grounding one's poetic flights of fancy. An X-ray, that most uncompromising of critics, has revealed a hairline fracture. Consequently, I have been "sentenced" to a month of immobilisation, a regimen of anti-inflammatories that should ideally temper the rhetoric of some other politicians, and an Air Cast on my right foot that is significantly less aerodynamic than its name suggests.
This bulky contraption, coupled with a stern medical admonition against perambulation, has effectively "grounded" me in a way my political opponents never quite managed. I now find myself navigating the corridors of power from the vantage point of a wheelchair, a transition that brings with it a certain rueful perspective. There is, I've discovered, a profound humility in being eye-level with the waistbands of one's colleagues; it gives one a literal "bottom-up" view of Indian democracy that is as enlightening as it is humbling.
I have become, quite overnight, a man of "wheel-power" rather than willpower, though I suspect the pace of my progress through the Makar Dwar and into the Lok Sabha chamber will now be measured in rotations rather than strides. While I have long advocated for "moving the needle" in Parliament, I didn't anticipate doing so on four wheels. Of course, it is salutary for anyone with delusions of grandeur to be confined to the View from Below. One notices quickly that the world looks quite different when you are eye-level with the gun holsters of the security guards.
"If The Lamp Must Watch Its Step..."
Despite this involuntary shift to a more sedentary existence, I have no intention of letting a mere hairline fracture impede the business of the people. While my gait has been forcibly slowed, my resolve remains unfractured. I fully intend to chair my Committee meetings with the same commitment (though perhaps less pacing), deliver my speeches from a seated position - a posture that, I am told, lent the legendary FDR a certain gravitas - and be steered through Parliament with the navigational precision of a slow-moving tugboat.
There is a certain rueful irony in being silenced by a stair after surviving so many scuffles at the dispatch box. However, I am embracing this temporary "static" phase of my career. If the lamp must watch its step, it might as well do so while enjoying the comfort of a padded footrest. I shall simply have to ensure that my rhetoric remains more balanced than my gait.
I shall be back on my feet soon enough. In the meantime, if you see a man in an oversized boot rolling determinedly toward a microphone, do step aside - brakes, much like political consensus, can sometimes be unreliable. I ask only for a clear path and perhaps a bit of indulgence; after all, in a career spent trying to keep the government on its toes, it is only fair that I should spend a few weeks off mine.
(Shashi Tharoor has been a Member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, since 2009. He is a published author and a former diplomat.)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
