The other day, I had a brief encounter with Narendra Modi in Nagpur during my Vidarbha tour. Though I barged into hotel room bright and early without an appointment, he took me in during the ten-minute wait for his chopper. He first said the BJP will sweep all Gujarat seats. I asked him if the BJP was worried about a few Muslim-dominated constituencies. Modi looked at me calmly for a moment, and then, without blinking an eyelid, ripped me apart for suggesting that Muslims don’t vote for the BJP. “Your paper needs to first understand the situation on the ground,” he slammed and whammed me and paper for a while, deplored my paper for gunning for the BJP and him without any application of mind. “This division is in your mind, not ours,” he thundered, without once losing his poise.

After hearing him out, I narrated my experience of Ahmedabad a week after the bomb explosion last year. My Muslim car driver, to whom I was a stranger, began blasting his chief minister for all ills on the planet. To the extent of blaming him for the explosions as well. When I tried to reason with him as to why would a CM cut his nose to spite his face, (there was a blast in Modi’s own constituency too), he felt cornered but his feverish resentment showed through every bit of conversation.

Modi heard me out quietly, said he was happy I had told him about it and then suggested I spend 20 days (I am looking for an editor who gives me this kind of time to file stories) in Gujarat, meet people and generally interact with them. “Just see how they live, where they study, etc. Don’t ask them any (political) questions.” The point being, look at the development I have brought to the place, rather than prod drivers.

I asked him what factor or factors one should consider to be a good administrator. “National welfare,” he said promptly. I nodded. “You mean the good of the people.” He said no, national welfare “at all costs.” “The problem with today’s politicians is that they are caught up with either their own selfish ends or with their regional interests.” He gave an example. “If a railway line is planned in such a way that it crosses my region and instead of helping my region, it would harm the interests of the locals or the region in some way, I would still go ahead with it if it means greater national good.”

At that point, one of his aides gave him the news that one Salim had joined the BJP in Gujarat. Modi looked at him and pointed in my direction, “Inhe kahiye.”

What struck me as remarkable was this man’s total lack of concern for striking the right pose with the media. He went into attack mode without any warning, didn’t seem to care if I left in protest or write against him, nor did he dismiss me as a opponent and ill-treat me. He listened carefully even though he made it very clear he was not interested in the media’s projection of him, took pains to put across his point of view when he could have summarily nodded and be done with it.

I came back riled. But considering that I have not seen a single politician who has the guts to rub the media the wrong way (except Pramod Mahajan but that was a case of arrogance, not indifference) and not just for the heck of it, I credit Modi with that bit of decency.