Barack Obama Versus Manmohan Singh

It looks like US President Barack Obama’s supporters have been waging a secret war against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. You might remember that the Time Magazine had put Manmohan Singh’s picture on the cover of its Asian edition and had termed him an “underachiever.” At that time the Outlook had come out in support of our beloved prime minister and had retaliated by featuring Barack Obama, the real underachiever, on its cover.

Now the Onion has come up with a picture which shows Obama cooking breakfast in one of Michelle's extra-long T-shirts. Obviously, they want to show how hardworking their president is. Not only can he run a nation and wage war on several fronts, but fix breakfast for his family too. This is too much. I suspect it is a planted story to make Obama look cool and sexy all over the world.

I was waiting for someone to do a similar picture campaign for our prime minister, but no one came out in his support this time. Indians seem to be good only at bashing their leaders. It was the Grist Mill which finally rose to the occasion and created a picture in which Dr. Manmohan Singh is seen cooking breakfast in one of the saris of his wife, Gursharan Kaur.

The Overachiever according to the Onion

The Overachiever Dr. Manmohan Singh  

All of us know how difficult it is to make Indian breakfast. While Americans are satisfied with easy-to-fix or ready-to-eat items such as toast, bagel, egg, juice etc, each member in an Indian family has demands ranging from stuffed-paranthas, aloo-puri, idli-sambhar, utthapan, bread pakora, chow mien, pasta to halwa, kheer, etc. etc. Now the readers can themselves decide who between these two leaders is a bigger achiever. Also keep in mind that Manmohan Singh runs a country which has four times the population of Obama’s country, not to forget the level of difficulty in tying a sari compared to putting on a T-shirt.