Rahul Gandhi, the rather Caucasian-looking scion of India’s first political family – so Caucasian-looking that my American friend often thinks that he’s blond; is that young Indian politician who has recently begun to bloom. He’s about fifty and dynamic in spurts, and possibly the most eligible bachelor in India.
I did his portrait a few months ago – a sketch that I scanned into the computer and then I sketched upon it some more, mostly to add color. This is done from one of his official portraits. I like it for its subtle, innocent smile. If he were a woman, I’d call it a Monalisa smile – a smile that hides more than it reveals, and which stretches upon a pain that cannot be understood by others.
I’m sure that most of my blog-visitors must be wondering who this guy is and why the caricaturist is so gung-ho about his visit to her blog. So keeping in line with the longstanding tradition of this blog, I’d like to present Rahul Gandhi’s shortest biography on the web.
Rahul Gandhi’s Extremely Brief Biography:
Rahul was born on June 19th 1970. His political lineage is studded with three important stars of India’s political firmament. His father Mr. Rajeev Gandhi, his grandmother Mrs. Indira Gandhi, and his maternal great-grandfather, were all Prime Ministers of India in their time. However, his grandmother and his father were both assassinated – his grandmother when he was fourteen and father when he was twenty-one. Rahul studied in St. Columba’s, the Doon School, then joined St. Stephen’s but moved to Harvard, then to Rollins College (known to have the most beautiful college campus in the US) in Florida, finally finishing at Cambridge.
As it happens often on this blog, one thing led to another, and today Rahul Gandhi is the President of the Indian National Congress. INC is the largest and the only national political party that’s currently in opposition, thanks to its dismal performance in the previous elections. Today it faces the mighty BJP headed by Narendra Modi, whose humble roots, desi appeal, and charismatic rhetoric had brought the BJP into power.
Rahul 2.0
A weak opposition is possibly what cripples a democracy the most. Unfortunately, for reasons best known to the Gandhi family, in past, Rahul has always appeared to be a chance-politician. But since the recent Gujarat elections in which INC and BJP ran almost neck and neck, things seem to be changing.
Recently, we’ve been seeing a new avatar of Rahul. A Rahul who is more confident, who’s done his homework, who speaks Hindi more fluently, who doesn’t roll up his sleeve every two minutes, and who “bhayya-fies” his audience less often. He’s begun to assert himself as a Hindu Brahmin (not that most of us care…or believe,) and the media too is softening toward him.
I wish him luck in the 2019 elections.
Shafali's Caricatures, Portraits, and Cartoons 