NEW DELHI: ‘Magician, garden and grandmom’ — Rahul Gandhi on Friday left Lok Sabha reeling with his storytelling on how his grandmother took him to their garden to remove his fear of darkness and about a magician losing his tricks after a failed act.In a banter during a debate on the bills related to women’s quota, the leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha also went on to say PM Modi and he didn’t have “the wife issue”, as he emphasised that everyone has learnt from women in their lives.
As Rahul continued with his magician analogy, apparently aimed at the PM, the treasury benches protested, disrupting proceedings. Amid the uproar, defence minister Rajnath Singh demanded Rahul be asked to apologise for his “derogatory remarks”.Speaker Om Birla asked Rahul not to digress from the topic, leading Congress functionaries to demand that he be allowed to continue.Rahul said, “I remember that when I was a little boy, I was afraid of the dark. We had a huge dog that would often attack my sister and me. One day, my grandmother found out about this… She took me to the garden, left me there, and said, ‘Don’t be afraid.’ I watched her walk away and I didn’t have the courage to tell her that I didn’t want to stay there. For me, those few minutes felt like hours. I imagined snakes, dogs… everything that scared me.”“My grandmother came back and asked, ‘What are you scared of?’ I said, ‘I am scared of that dog; I am scared of everything.’ She said, ‘You aren’t scared of dogs, bats or the dark. You are scared of your mind, your imagination, and your thoughts,” Rahul said as the Speaker looked befuddled.Birla insisted Rahul go back to the topic, but he wasn’t relenting: “Then she told me, ‘You shouldn’t be afraid of the dark, because truth most often lies in darkness. If you don’t have the courage to face your fears, you will never be able to understand or fight for the truth.”Rahul did not cease at that. “Truth is the magician has been caught — the magician of Balakot; the magician of demonetisation; and the magician of Operation Sindoor,” he added.
