WITH K R NARAYANAN IN CHINA

His birth day in China

Though I have worked for a big newspaper with right leanings for 20 years, my political orientation had always been Left, in the larger sense of the term. So I was pleasantly surprised when I was assigned to accompany the then Vice President K R Narayanan on his visit to China. It was for an entire week during 21-28 October 1994. I was in Thiruvananthapuram. The ISRO espionage scandal had just broken when I left India.

Prior to the trip, there was an official briefing by the Foreign Secretary Salman Haidar and Joint Secretary Shivsankar Menon, grand son of the legendary K P S Menon. It was written in the horoscope of K P S Menon that his son and grand son would occupy the same position he had held. My college mate Venu Rajamony, IFS, who speaks Mandarin fluently and was serving  in our Embassy in China was also present. I remember him, asking me whether it was my first visit to the South Block. Well, it was.

The aircraft that we boarded was Rajhans, one of the three  Air India One Boeing 747 special air crafts operated by the Air Force to fly the President, Vice President and the Prime Minister. The Other two being Rajdoot and Rajkamal. Each cost the IAF $ 9.34 Billion. Each 46 seater plane is called the Boeing Business Jet, BBJ. We boarded the flight in the morning from the Old Palam South parking , the Air Force Base. There was a technical snag and we were asked to disembark and were sent to a five star hotel to take rest. The flight took off in the afternoon.

Narayanan with Jiang Zemin

I met the doyen of Indian journalism, Nikhil Chakroborty of the Mainstream inside the flight and he spoke of the olden days of the CPI ; about the Communist stalwarts, M N Govindan Nair, EMS, AKG , C Achyutha Menon and P K Vasudevan Nair. He spoke about the vacillating nature of EMS during the party split of 1964. E M S, he said, had tried to join the Editorial Board of the Indian Express. We met again in Thiruvananthapuram when he came to inaugurate the Kollam edition of the Daily I was working in. We walked for few hours and he bought some curios.

In Beijing, I stayed in the Shangri-La Hotel, Room No 917. The double room rent was $100 +15% tax. I shared the room with V K Madhavan Kutty, former Editor of Mathrubhumi.Though retired, he had found a place in the entourage because of his friendship with Narayanan. He asked me whether I can share the room with him because he was spending from own purse for food. I agreed. He had brought an electric kettle and tea bags. I still have the instructions sheet from the hotel which says: Tipping of waiters is not customary in China.The hotel was run by the Chinese Army as partner, the receptionist Charlie Shi told me. I got a Christmas greeting card from him; it is signed 05.12.1994.

Great Hall of the People

The same evening, there was a five course dinner at the Great Hall of People, hosted by Rong Yiren,Vice President. Not all were invited. Nikhil  told me that he will get me invited, keeping Madhavankutty out, since he was not representing any paper. He kept his word.The invitation which is still with me, says my table number was 8. N Ravi, Editor of The Hindu and Kalyani Sankar, New Delhi Bureau Chief of Hindustan Times shared the table with me because we were vegetarians. The Chinese ran a five course vegetarian dinner for us. I still remember a kozhukattai with vegetables inside which I am yet to come across in India.

Myself and an old friend K P Nair, of the Economic Times, went to the Mao Mausoleum, in the middle of Tienanmen Square in the morning. I had butterflies in my stomach, seeing the bloodless, embalmed body of Mao Zedong. Mao had been the Chairman, from 1945 until his death in 1976. The  Mausoleum stands on the previous site of the Gate of China, the main gate of the city during the Ming and Qing dynasties.Mao had wished to be cremated, but was embalmed to listen to the gun shots of Tienanmen in 1989. I had taken a week long dictation from Kannada writer U R Anantha Murthy,for a series on the incident. He was in China, during the time.

Mao Mausoleum in Tienanmen Square

For Narayanan, there was a welcome ceremony in the Great Hall the next day. We entered the Hall through the North gate. The ceremony was at the court yard outside East gate. Narayanan was welcomed "as an old friend" of China, because he was India's first Ambassador to China in 1962, the year in which we lost the war. Official talks between Narayanan and Yiren were held at Hebie Hall. Two MOU s were signed. The lunch for Narayanan was in Western Hall and for us a Buffet was arranged in our hotel.Then we moved to Zgungnanhai where Narayanan met President Jiang Zemin and then to Diayutai State Guest House where Narayanan had a talk with Li Ruihan, Chairman of Chinese People's Political Committee Conferences, followed by a banquet in the same venue at Fang Feinan Pavilion. Narayanan was staying in the Guest House. Salman Haidar had met the Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan in the Guest House.

Dead Mao inside Mausoleum

On October 23, Sunday, myself and K P Nair decided to go on our own to see the Great wall. The taxi driver got us a very young interpreter and guide, Jennifer, his girl friend.Her original name was different. She had studied spoken English and had selected an English name to introduce herself to the tourists. She asked us whether India has something like the Forbidden City; we told her we had harems. I didn't know then Chikka Veera Rajendra, the last Kodagu King had even his father's youngest wife in his harem. Jennifer said she and her boyfriend wanted to get married as early as possible. But there was a long queue for apartments because everything is state owned. One can marry only if an apartment is alloted. So, she said, the boy and girl at times, manipulate a marriage certificate much before the actual marriage.

In the afternoon, Jennifer took us to a restaurant where she assured,there will be something vegetarian. An owen was placed in front of me on my table, with a crab and  cooked Chinese Cabbage. I ate some cabbage leaves. It was compensated by the buffet dinner at Ta Yuan hosted by Bhaskar Roy, Counsellor at our Embassy. Narayanan had left by a Chinese special flight to Dunhuang, to visit Mogao Grottoes or the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas. It forms a system of 492 temples on the Silk Road. The caves contain Buddhist murals spanning a period of 1000 years. Narayanan had his family members, Usha, Dr P C Mohan, Chitra and Chandrika,with him.

Avalokiteswara Mural in Cave 57

Since Narayanan was not in Beijing, we were totally free on October 24. We were asked to see the  Great Wall, Ming Tomb and Summer Palace. Since I had already seen the Great Wall, I thought I will skip the tourist places and do some work. I met Sam Venkatesh, Head of Motorola and Pradeep Mathur, Country Manager of Chase Manhattan Bank. Both of them had a lot to tell about  Deng Xiao Ping's daughters, Deng Nan and Deng Rong. They had to be bribed if some one was looking for a prime property. Pradeep said Deng was President of the Chinese Chess Association! Deng, as you know, was famous for the quote, It doesn't matter whether a cat is white or black as long as it catches the mice.

I also met Rajiv Chandra who was working for a news agency and Sheela, the correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor. They told me how the surveillance system of the party works. They also waxed eloquent about the so called resurgence of Christianity and democracy. Nikhil was busy meeting his personal friends in the Chinese Polit Buro and Central Committee. At nightfall, we were invited by S  Jaishankar, Minister at embassy, for a buffet dinner at his residence in Jianguoyenwah diplomatic apartments.

Narayanan was taken to Xian by a special Chinese aircraft next day, October 25, to see Terracota Warrior's Museum and Huaqing Hot springs. I went to the Friends Store, bought a couple of paintings. One, The Thousand Children in silk, later, tore off in the middle, while I was shifting from my rented home, to own home in Thiruvananthapuram.

S K Verma, Second Secretary hosted the lunch at Omar Khayyam Hotel. On 26, we were flown to Shanghai by Rajhans. I stayed in Jin Jiang Hotel.The rent for the room was $ 115.50 + 15% tax. In the evening there was a banquet by the Vice Mayor, Xu Kuangdi in the Magnolia Hall of the hotel.

Before going to China, I had gone through Narayanan's bio- data and found that a beautiful story was in store for me in Shanghai-next day, October 27 was Narayanan's birth day.To do the story, I had to speak to him. I met Arif S Khan, Joint Secretary and told him my dilemma; none knew Narayanan was having his birthday in China! Arif promised me he will do something-while we were returning after the banquet, Arif pushed me into the lift with Narayanan. I spoke to Narayanan in the lift. It seemed he too was not aware of his birth day. He said he doesn't celebrate it at all; and for Keralites, the star is important, not the date.I had a front page story for my daily, from Shanghai.

Narayanan spoke to the students of the Fudan University, the next morning-it was his lone speech in the week long itinerary. The President of the University, Prof Yan Fujin received Narayanan to Sir Run Run Shaw Hall. In his speech, Narayanan indirectly solicited China's support for India's entry into the U N Security Council. He reminisced that India had stepped away in 1955, for  China to get into the Security Council. He quoted from a letter, the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru sent to the Indian Chief Ministers on 20 July 1955. Nehru had said: "Informally suggestions have been made that China would be taken into the United Nations but not in the Security Council. We cannot, of course, accept this as it means falling out with China and it would be very unfair for a great country like China not to be in the Security Council.We have, therefore, made it clear to those who suggested this that we cannot agree to this suggestion.We have even gone a little further and said that India is not anxious to enter the Security Council at this stage, even though as a great country she ought to be there. The first step to be taken is for China to take her rightful place,and then the question of India might be considered separately". (Jawaharlal Nehru-Letters to Chief Ministers.vol 4,page 237).

I personally doubt whether Nehru was sincere.

Chinese Cabbage

Narayanan also remembered Kerala. He said it was from the shores of China Admiral Zheng Ho set sail in the 15th Century on his epic voyages and visited Kerala years before Vasco da Gama landed in Calicut. He referred to the part played by the pilgrim scholars  Xuan Xang, Fa Xian, Kumara Jiva and Bodhi Dharma in the cultural exchanges between India and China.

We went to Fudan passing over Yangpu bridge and returned via Nanpu bridge.

We reached Hong Kong on 28th and stayed in the Hilton Hotel. My room was 2224. A plan to demolish the hotel was on. So, I have kept the swiping key as a relic. The 26 storey land mark Hilton was closed in May, 1995 and demolished to make way for Cheung Kong Centre. The book, The Private Life of Chairman Mao written by his personal physician Li Zhisui was just out. I bought a copy. I met P K Vasudevan Nair's son Kesavan Kutty in his video shop; his nephew M P Gopalan organised a dinner, in which a few Keralites were present.

On the return flight, J J Tharayil, Chief Security Laison Officer , an I B officer belonging to Kerala, took me to Narayanan's cabin. Narayanan asked me whether it was possible to trace the poem ,Kanthara Chandrika, which he wrote in Malayala Manorama while he was studying in C M S College, Kottayam. I got it traced, and sent to him, after my return.

While in Jin Jiang hotel, a lady foreign service officer of China came to me to brief on India and China. She didn't seem to care for the 1962 India-China war. It appeared to me that a war will be remembered  only by the losers. So we remember. I asked her whether she has heard the name of a place called Kerala; is she aware of a Leftist movement in Kerala and Naxalbari in Bengal, which was called by Chinese Radio termed  as 'The Thunder in Spring?".

She shook her head. No. Never.

See my blog,WITH JASWANT SINGH IN ISRAEL AND PALESTINE