Lady Rashtrapati?
Rashtrapati is essentially masculine. What do you call a woman Rashtrapati? Rashtrapatni would be too bad! We are most likely to face this problem very soon as a woman is likely to occupy the largest Presidential palace in the world.
The Rashtrapati Bhavan is larger than the Buckingham palace and the White House. With its more than 350 rooms and lovely Rose Gardens, it’s a dream palace for a Moghul prince. Unfortunately nobody reaches the Rashtrapati Bhavan before he is seventy plus. Why can’t we elect a young person with a small beautiful family to be the President of India so that he/she can enjoy the comforts of India’s most luxurious palace?
It seems Governor-General Rajaji used to get lost in the Palace and he used to ask for directions to reach his bedroom!
It was only yesterday that I called up a former Governor and she told me that there would be a surprise candidate for President and most probably it would be a woman. I asked her if she was the candidate. She sounded disappointed that she was not being considered in spite of her eminent qualifications. “But what would you call a Lady Rashtarpati?”, I asked her. Madam President is okay, but Rashtrapatniji certainly sounds odd – maybe we should change the designation, at least in Hindi.