Republican Curt Clawson is having a rather bad week in the US. A few days ago, Clawson was chairing a very high-profile meet on trade and ties with India, about how the two countries can, well, “welcome each other” and share a productive relationship.
Everything was going absolutely fine until a very eager Clawson, in an attempt to impress, started showing off how much he knew about India and guess what, HYDERABAD!
Seated in front were two “brown-skinned” “Indian-named” individuals — Nisha Biswal and Arun Kumar — and poor Clawson, immediately assumed they were Indians representing India at the meet. “I went to school with Nagarjuna. I know Jagapati (referring to Jagapati Ramprasad of the city’s Walden bookstore) I love Hyderabad, I love Chennai and I’m very familiar with your country,” he shot off with a smile.
But to Clawson’s utter shock and dismay, both Biswal and Kumar were not Indians. In fact, they are actually part of the American government. Biswal is assistant US Secretary of State for South and Central Asia and Kumar is the assistant US Secretary for Global Markets at the Department of Commerce. The US media have been tearing Clawson apart for the epic goof-up with blogs even describing him as this summer’s “dumbest politician”.
However, his city friend, Nagarjuna, (who is a little surprised with his name popping up) is concerned for Clawson. “I can’t really recognise him any more — he has aged a bit,” said the actor.
“Clawson, in fact, comes to Hyderabad regularly and has a good circle of friends here in town. I met him when I was studying in the US and he used to often visit our college through a common friend. And I’m talking about the year 1979. But he’s an extremely nice guy and I hope the issue dies down and he doesn’t take too much flak,” Nagarjuna added.
One thing’s clear though... with such a strong city connect, it’s surprising that Clawson’s been under attack for being too “ill-informed” about the world. All he had to do was check the guestlist at the meet.
