Page 68 - Microsoft Word - 01_A MÁSIK OLDAL English.doc

THE PROTOCOL

The president of the Indian Congress Party may have passed the
age of eighty and after Indira Ghandi, he was the second most
influential person in his country. He visited Hungary because of
Hungarian aluminium production. The tour guide department
sent me to interpret. During the summer heat, it seemed that the
professional interpreters went on vacation. The Hungarian
aluminium industry was very developed from the perspective of
India, and the country's politicians wanted to follow the
Hungarian example, since they already had a mining industry.
The Western example, on the other hand, was expensive.
After his arrival, he paid the usual protocol visits to various
leading politicians. Maybe he also met Kádár, but I don't know
that, because the Great Chess Player had specially selected
service staff. Not just anyone could get close to him. I didn't
mind this, because I called him a renegade during a
conversation with the chief of protocol. He hummed, not
understanding, "Yes, he is a big player in politics," he said.
Kádár was generally popular, and not only in the eyes of those
above a certain level of subsistence. Hungarian history already
sweated out something similar when it was able to refer to
Franz Joseph as Jóska, that is Joe, as if a mate. The person who
destroyed Hungary: first in 1849, then permanently in 1867
with the compromise with Hungary. After the compromise, a
34
straight road led to Trianon .
In the 1970s, we weren’t even part of the neutral group of
countries, which included Yugoslavia, India, Libya, and other
states, and they very consciously claimed that it was a separate
power. Many delegations came to our country from India.
The old man gave a reception after the mandatory visits and
before the rural visits. I mean, the Indian Embassy did it on his

34 After the First WW the Trianon dictated peace treaty of 1920 severed the body of
Hungary. She lost two thirds of her territory and population.

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