Reporter’s Diary: PM Modi’s ‘inside jokes’ delight IITians, leave scribes puzzled

He said:“You will surely miss Saarang and Shaastra. You will miss your wing-mates. And there is something you will not miss. Most notably, you can now buy top quality footwear without any fear.”

Even several hours after the event concluded, journalists couldn’t decipher PM’s reference to “quality footwear” until an IITian apprised them of the monkey menace in the campus and how shoes and slippers of students were frequently stolen by monkeys, causing them to buy cheap footwear. In another instance, the PM said, “I am told that here, the mountains move and the rivers are stationary.” This reference flummoxed scribes even more, until a little probing revealed that in the IIT campus buildings were named after Indian rivers and their campus buses after mountain ranges and peaks.

While these anecdotes did manage the PM to connect with his audience, who were enthralled by his attention to small details, it left scribes wondering if the PM’s team of speech writers could be poached and put to use in newspapers. After all, such meticulous research is an asset – to the PM’s office or a newsroom.