Mmmmm, Rahul dude, first things first, congrats on the double whammy… Wayanad and Rae Bareli. And the 99 seats of course. Throwing missiles at the NDA for stock market scams, a day after the election results, hmmm interesting—a massive departure from your “Pappu” avatar when Arnab took you apart on TV. I remember thinking, man, you don’t need this, are you even interested, nepotism in politics can swing either way, and the Gandhi dynasty is a hard cross to bear, was it a millstone or milestone? Obviously, your great grandfather’s footprint is still deeply embedded in the sand, fifty years on—your iron lady grandmother and her legacy, your dad who moved from pilot to having to pilot the nation, big boots to fill. Did you wanna join politics, or were you forced to inherit the “family business”? People made fun of you, with good reason, you were clearly floundering, “why doesn’t the Congress ‘privatise”, “why doesn’t the party choose “youngification” over “old fogeyism” was the refrain. The cobwebs were visible.

Over the years, you still didn’t seem to have picked up political acumen or craft or craftiness. But it amused me that you still managed to get under the skin of your rivals. How is that? Was it your “privileged background”? Being a scion of the First Family of Indian Politics?