The Rahul Gandhi Pattern

India, my dear friends, is a land where ghosts, and politicians all enjoy a strange camaraderie. And if you watch closely, sometimes even the cosmos appears to share a private joke at our expense. Consider, for instance, Rahul Gandhi. A young man of good health, decent manners, and even better air miles. But here’s the oddity: each time this heir of the venerable Nehru-Gandhi lineage takes off for foreign shores, India seems determined to greet his return with a new catastrophe.

Coincidence? Perhaps. But I have lived long enough to know that when coincidences start forming a queue, one must at least raise an eyebrow—even if, like me, one’s eyebrows are now more memory than hair.

Look at the sequence; it reads like a dark comedy script written by a bored astrologer.

January 2019: Rahul is in Abu Dhabi. February 14: Pulwama goes up in flames. A suicide bomber erases 40 CRPF jawans. A nation weeps.

June 2016: Rahul visits Turkey. Within weeks, Uri is attacked. Another tragedy, another round of chest-thumping and blame-throwing.

December 2019: He returns from South Korea. The CAA-NRC protests explode. Shaheen Bagh becomes the winter capital for dissent. Delhi burns and 53 people die. Democracy debates itself hoarse, and no one wins.

December 2020: Off he goes to Italy. Back home, the farmers rise. By Republic Day 2021, tractors invade the Red Fort. Flags are planted, bones are broken, and the TV anchors nearly achieve nirvana.

February 2024: A month-long Cambridge sojourn. March 1: An IED blast jolts Rameshwaram Café in Bangalore. Terror revisits us—as casually as mosquitoes in monsoon.

March 2025: Vietnam trip. April: The Waqf Act ignites protests, especially in Murshidabad. Riots, arson, deaths—our usual package deal.

April 19, 2025: He flies to the US. On April 22, Pahalgam sees a terror strike that kills 26 tourists. The timing would make even a Swiss watch blush.

July 2025: A covert Bahrain visit. By September, the “I Love Mohammad” row blooms, and Ladakh erupts. Stones fly, police lathis dance, and tourists nervously check cancellation policies.

September 2024: A European detour. One controversial Swift-One statement later, the farmer protests spark again like an old matchbox.

And just last month: a trip to South America. On November 10, a car bomb explodes near Delhi’s Red Fort metro. Chaos, yet again, enters our morning news like an unwelcome relative.

Now, before the conspiracy theorists start rubbing their hands with glee, let me confess: I am not suggesting that Rahul Gandhi carries bad omens in his suitcase. But one must admit—the pattern is deliciously absurd. The heavens appear to be playing a prank. Rahul steps off a plane, and India seems to say, “Ah, welcome home. Now watch this!”

It is tragic, of course. But also poignantly comic. While he sips cappuccino in far-off cafés, India prepares its usual fare of riots, bombs, protests, and political melodrama. If this keeps up, next time he travels, the rest of us might do well to carry helmets, umbrellas, and aspirin.

Is it coincidence? Cosmic mischief? Karma having a laugh? I do not know. India, as always, waits in breathless impatience for the next act. But one thing is undeniable: in this great, chaotic theatre, Rahul Gandhi has become the most curious talisman of turmoil—an accidental mascot of mayhem.

And yet, like all Indian stories, this too is wrapped in mystery, irony, and just a touch of madness. Which, come to think of it, is exactly what makes India… India.