Make in USA

So PM Modiji is back from a triumphant US trip to visit Jayalalithaa in jail and start the ‘Swachh Bharat' campaign with Sachin. Around the same time, President Obama had a high-level meeting in the White House with music legends Bruce ‘The Boss' Springsteen, Barbara Streisand, Beyonce Knowles with Jay Z in tow. And Justin Bieber, the brat.

"Wassup boss. I feel like I'm dancing in the dark here. Why so serious?" Bruce asked, unperturbed by his Prez's furious frown. "This Indian Prime Minister comes to town, and in one night he packs more people into Madison Square Garden than the four of you have managed in your entire respective careers. And he wasn't even singing. Manhattan is reeling from Modi mania. He's a ‘rock star'. What are you real rock stars going to do about it?"

"Not our fault," Beyonce cooed, "He packed it with NRIs and American Indians and that's not my audience."

"Well, make it your audience, Miss Knowles. There are more NRIs in America than rednecks. At 16.4 per cent, Indian Americans are the third largest Asian American group in the US . That's 2.8 million people, almost one per cent of our population, go figure."

"Chill honey," Michelle Obama said, handing her husband a dhokla.

"I want to pack the stadium. I want you four musicians to write a series of hit songs - ballads, bhajans, bee-bop tunes, break dance numbers, I don't care, anything, by next week," Barack hollered.

"Can't, Prez dude. Sorry, I'm going into rehab tomorrow. Can I ask Selena Gomez to fill in for me? She's kind of Red Indian, isn't she?" Bieber blabbed.

"No, you ignorant moron, she's Puerto Rican," Barbara barked.

"Anyway, quit wasting time. Here's an idea. Why not create a theme song called ‘Make in America'?" Michelle Obama suggested.

"That's not even English," Bruce piped in.

"Who cares? Mr Modi barely knows a word of English and he still packed in tens of thousands of people. Write songs in Swahili for all I care," said Obama.

"What about a track called I Come From a Land Down Under?" Jay Z asked hopefully.

"Oh my God, that's the kind of gaffe Sarah Palin would make. Down Under is Australia. Jeez guys, get on with the programme," Obama said flustered.

Springsteen stayed calm. "I'm thinking I'll write a song called ‘May The Force Be With You', which is a duet between Hugh Jackman and Sushma Swaraj. We can sell it to the producers of Wolverine."

"Now you're talking, boss. How about a song called Vande Madison? We'll get AR Rahman to compose and he can play live," Obama said, excited.

The room was now buzzing as the creativity flowed and ideas bubbled over. Suddenly Beyonce jumped in - "Jay Z and I have cracked a love song, guys. It's a remix of an old Rod Stewart ballad. It speaks to the soul of every Indian who came to this great country in search of wealth and money."

"What's it called?" everyone asked.

"Have I Told You Jaitley?" Jay Z concluded.

Rahul da Cunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahuldacunha62 @gmail.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.