Delhi was facing an unprecedented heatwave when I left for Kerala in June, with temperatures crossing the 50-degree Celsius mark. The worst memory I had was when I stood under a shower and opened the tap. I felt a burning sensation all over my body when the water fell on me. I stepped out and turned off the tap. Fortunately, my skin, thickened over the last seventy years, was able to withstand the heat, and I escaped without blisters.

Figuratively speaking, too, Delhi was reeling under fears that Narendra Modi would return to South Block with over 400 seats, allowing his Sancho Panza and other sidekicks in states like Assam and Uttar Pradesh to turn the law upside down. For the first time in five years, the people could breathe a sigh of relief that a regime which throttled democracy, used state arms like the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation to stifle the voice of the Opposition, and allowed extra-constitutional bodies like the three-letter organisation to have a field day, had lost its fangs.

That Delhi has changed for the better was palpable when I came out of the comforts of the air-conditioned aircraft and Terminal 3 of the Indira Gandhi International Airport. There was a nip of rain in the air, and with the windows of the car kept open, I felt I was back in Kayamkulam, though the heavy traffic and the wide roads reminded me that I was indeed in the national capital.

Delhi has changed. One person responsible for it is a middle-aged angry man, reviled by the ruling party for the last 10 years as a good-for-nothing Pappu who could neither think nor act. I heard Rahul Gandhi's maiden speech as the Leader of Opposition, which was at once straight from the heart, touching upon various issues of concern for the people.

He spoke extempore in both English and Hindi, showing his command of both languages. Not for him, such platitudinal words as "Mere Bharat Vasiyom"! The House listened to him with rapt attention, though, rattled by his powerful words, even Modi and Amit Shah stood up to protest.

His speech was heard on YouTube by 5.8 lakh people, whereas Modi could muster a viewership of only 54,000. When Modi spoke in the Rajya Sabha the next day, his viewership plummeted by half. In contrast, the maiden speech of Chandra Shekhar Azad was viewed by 6 lakh people. Even for his Bhakts, Modi is now a jaded politician!

Had Modi been sensible, he would have quit and allowed a more capable person in the BJP or the NDA to lead the government. When the Congress won only 44 seats in 2019, Rahul Gandhi owned up responsibility and quit the post of party president, letting the party eventually elect a president. Modi could have emulated Gandhi.

Alas, Modi is unable to recognise Rahul Gandhi, whom he referred to as a Balak (child) with Balak Buddhi (child's brain) in his address to the Motion of Thanks to the President. In the story titled "The Emperor's New Clothes" by Andersen, it was a child who told the world that the Emperor was naked. Until then, he believed that he wore a soft and invisible dress that two swindlers had forced upon him.

Modi never had a family life, never spent time with children, and does not know how adorable children are. People love children because they are sincere and not cunning like ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari, who do Namaste to Rahul when they are in private but won't even acknowledge his presence when they are with the Prime Minister.

People love children. That is why the "child" was elected from both Wayanad and Rae Bareli with double the majority the "adult" received in Varanasi, where he initially trailed behind the Congress. They did not fall for the elaborate costume that he always wears against the simple T-shirt and trousers that the child wears. A child's innocence is reflected on his face, not on the clothes he wears.

To drive home the point that Rahul Gandhi cannot deliver, he compared him to a child who claimed that he got 99 marks without revealing that it was out of 540, not 100. While making such an idiotic statement, Modi should have turned around and seen the shrunken space the BJP occupied in the House. The Congress went to the polls leading the INDIAlliance, and it won a total of 234 seats. Rahul Gandhi is the LoP, not just of the Congress.

Modi described the Congress as a parasite. His survival as Prime Minister depends solely on the support of the Telugu Desam and the Janata Dal. The Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghad in Maharashtra and the Bahujan Samaj Party, which did not win a single seat, did the work of a spoiler in many constituencies, splitting opposition votes and allowing the BJP to win at least 10 seats.

Modi should have known one simple arithmetic. His party got only 36 per cent of votes and 240 seats against the 303 it won five years earlier. In other words, about 60 per cent of voters voted against his party. Yet, he used "infantile" arguments to show the Congress in a poor light.

Modi was the first to stand up and protest when Rahul Gandhi exposed his and the BJP's questionable religiosity. The essence of his speech was that the people of India wanted peace and reconciliation, not strife and violence. He quoted from religious and other texts to argue that the truly religious would not speak ill of others and would not be cowed down by threats and insinuations.

Modi tried his best to keep Gandhi under control, and at one point, he even managed to evict him from the House and his official residence. But he did not realise that a person who could do 10 push-ups impromptu on a public stage, as demanded by someone in the audience, who could jump into the sea and swim underwater for minutes, and who could walk from Kanyakumari to Kashmir wearing just a T-shirt and trousers, braving the heat of the south and the cold of the north, was made of sterner stuff.

Modi did not allow the Congress to use its funds in the elections, as he froze all its bank accounts. It would take up a lot of space if I mention everything that he, his government, and his party did to outsmart the Opposition. He made a caricature of himself when he sat in meditation to suit the angles of the camera. He abused Muslims in election speeches and fielded only one Muslim candidate in the entire country. Yet, the Speaker deemed it his duty to expunge the remarks made by Gandhi. And what did he say? He showed a picture of Lord Shiva with the Trishul behind his left shoulder. Gandhi's interpretation was new.

He said Shiva's Trishul was not for use. Had it been for use, it would have been behind his right shoulder. The point he made was that Hinduism was, at its core, pacifistic, as it recognised diversity. Any Hindu would have been happy to hear that his religion stood for peace and reconciliation. Gandhi learned the ideals of Satyagraha from the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita, which he could recite by heart.

Nathuram Godse was also an avid reader of the Gita. Alas, they read the sacred text differently. Godse thought that it encouraged him to buy an Italian revolver, stay in a Muslim-owned hotel in New Delhi, wear a green shirt, and shoot Gandhi at close quarters. Alas, a brave police officer in civvies caught him and pinned him down. On the contrary, it taught Mahatma Gandhi to use non-violence as a powerful weapon not only against the British in India but also against the racist whites in South Africa.

Modi and Co. thought that Rahul Gandhi had said something blasphemous. Party leaders went hyper to allege that he abused "Hindus" and "Hinduism." Those who repeatedly heard the "controversial" portion of his speech were convinced that his target was those who wore Hinduism on their sleeves to make political capital out of it.

Sooner rather than later, the BJP realised that Rahul Gandhi only praised Hinduism and did not abuse it. The day after, the BJP appeared the big loser when Shiv Sena leader and former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray gave Rahul Gandhi a clean chit, indicating in unmistakable terms that he was not just the Congress leader but the Leader of the Opposition, who, in Britain is considered the Prime Minister in Waiting.

Modi did not have anything new to say except to promise the people that the corrupt would be punished. Under his regime, the airports he built have been crumbling down, killing one and injuring six in Delhi. A feet-long fissure has developed in the sea bridge between Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, named after Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The scenic tunnel built in New Delhi can be crossed only by boat minutes after the skies open up.

When Rahul Gandhi asked specific questions about how the NEET question paper was leaked, Modi had no specific answer to give. The whole world is watching how an examination, touted as foolproof, made it possible for a Gujarati girl who secured single-digit marks in the science subjects in the Plus Two examination to get nearly 100 per cent in NEET. It is nothing but a Vyapam scandal, covered up because it happened in a BJP state.

Modi continued to ignore Manipur as if it did not exist. He forgot that even his political boss and RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat, had found his silence unacceptable. He was forced to mention Manipur at his address in Rajya Sabha. He claimed credit that violence has subsided.

He did not answer whether the Kukis were able to return to the Valley and stake claim to the houses in which they lived. Was there any possibility for the Christians, whether belonging to the Meitei or Kuki communities, to rebuild their churches and schools in the Valley? If not, does it not amount to a victory for those who unleashed violence with or without the support of a leader who remains in power despite so much blood on his hands?

I was in Kerala when Rahul Gandhi and Modi spoke in Parliament. I have talked to people who heard both of them. They are all happy that the Opposition is a force to reckon with and that the ruling dispensation can no longer pooh-pooh them. There are not many to cheer Modi, even when he repeats one-liners. Jai Sriram can no longer drown out Jai Samvidhan.

In other words, the 18th Lok Sabha is quite different from the 16th and 17th Lok Sabhas, although the Leader of the House remains the same. Once, people had great hopes that Modi would transform the nation. They fell for his rhetoric and promises but realised in the long run that he was like an empty vessel full of sound and fury that signify nothing, to quote the Bard.

Rahul Gandhi is the Leader of the future. He should realise that he should not fall into the BJP's traps. They would like him to quote religious texts so that a missing word here or an added word there in his speech could be used to turn the tables against him.

Instead, he should use the people's feelings, which he knows, to expose the chicanery of the BJP. Despite all the anti-minority propaganda, the man who won with the single largest majority in 2024 was a Muslim from Assam. Of course, I overlook the victory of the BJP in Indore, where the Congress candidate was forced to withdraw.

A word about the headline of this column. It is based on Charles Dickens' novel, "A Tale of Two Cities," which deals with events and stories of people during the French Revolution. It carries themes of darkness, death, love, and sacrifice. It represents a moment in time in two very similar yet drastically different cities, London and Paris. The two speeches represent two ideologies of love and hatred!