A company, which does business with Mr Hegde’s ministry, was so overjoyed at the news that it offered its flat in the Diwansri building on Ferozeshah road as the premises for the bash. Somehow, the party has not figured in any of the society columns since.

The mummy? Eminent danseuse Pratibha Prahlad, who in her late 30s is considerably younger than the septuagenarian Minister. However, old age never stopped a politician from sowing his wild oats, particularly one with a velvet tongue like Hegde (we’re talking of his manner of speech), who has from the very beginning of his days of power had his way with women.

Prahlad, meanwhile, returned from her delivery in New York to brazenly extol the virtues of producing babies in a recent issue of The Times of India. “I had babies because I love babies - for their purity, innocence and freshness. You need it in a world filled with jaded and sarcastic adults,” she says.

So it is a surprise that Smita, the wife of his son Jaidev, has assumed the mantle of ‘Matoshri’. Why has this happened? Why was this allowed? After all, she’s only the second wife in Jaidev’s life, and from the looks of things, even that looks to end soon.

One might think the daughter-in-law’s rise has accompanied Jaidev’s increasing influence. Jaidev, however, has moved out of his father’s house - the locus of power in Maharashtra. So perhaps it has to do with the son she delivered last year. Strangely, however, Jaidev is reported to be less than enthusiastic about the offspring.

Tongues will wag. From former Sainik Chhagan Bhujbal to Maharashtra bureaucrats who receive special instructions on administration from Smita, stories abound. Some have even been carried by the Marathi press, but most scribes prefer discretion, given the strong-arm tactics of the Sena. After all, who wants to raise the ire of the man who openly idolises Hitler, the man who wants Indo-Pak cricket matches banned, the man who believes there never has been nor will ever be any lesbianism in India?

The buzz now is that in return for leaving him alone, they have demanded their price - the heads of three bureaucrats. The RSS wants the heads Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Brajesh Mishra, Cabinet Secretary Prabhat Kumar, and Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office Nandu K Singh. While Mishra is deemed incompetent, the CabSec and Nandu are felt to be too pro-liberalisation and MNCs, strict no-nos for the Swadeshi brigade.

On Mishra, however, Atalji is reported to have begged for leniency. His plea? Mishra is his friend, is a nice guy, and he trusts him. So the RSS has apparently decided to let the Prime Minister keep his dost ensconced in South Block, though, with the appointment of Jaswant Singh as External Affairs Minister, the former foreign service office Mishra seems to have no real role left in Government. Not that there’s much to do in besides flog the dead horse this Government is, what with the Congress flies hungrily hovering around.

Romesh Sharma, property-grabber par excellence, was a patron of Deshbhakt Trust. Some may remember that the Trust was set up in 1996 by several prominent figures who had styled themselves as India’s saviours, battlers of corruption, and principled bureaucrats (though their critics called them mere publicity hounds).

Election reformer T N Seshan, supercop Kiran Bedi and urban development messiah K J Alphonse had set up the Trust, with an eye to rallying support around popular issues to benefit the common man. They ended up benefiting a con man, however, having chosen Sharma as their guide and mentor.

Illustration by Siddhartha Mitra