Now it's getting really nice for the Chancellor. She sits in a sort of solar-powered gazebo in New Delhi and explains why this is a sensible invention, especially for Indians. In order to make it even more comfortable, she beckons Minister of Agriculture Julia Klöckner, who is a pleasant person and has never worried about crude proposals for northern Syria. The two women discuss what is missing, so that it is even more beautiful in the arbor, and Merkel suggests: "Two flower pots around it".
That would be something for your retirement, you could interject, but nobody does that Saturday morning. In India Merkel is unchallenged Chancellor. The hard criticism of Friedrich Merz on the Grand Coalition ("grottenschlecht"), the dispute in the CDU to the question of whether the party leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer would be a suitable chancellor candidate - all this plays only a minor role in this journey. From Thursday evening to Saturday afternoon, Merkel was in New Delhi, for government consultations and some sightseeing.
RAJAT GUPTA / EPA-EFE / REX
Merkel with e-rickshaw: "Two flowerpots around it"
Above all, the sky was reminiscent of Berlin calamities, thick air in New Delhi, extreme smog, a dull sun that barely penetrated the dense gray. When Merkel addressed this topic in her speech to the German-Indian Chamber of Commerce this morning, she had to cough and cough right at that moment, her voice broke away. A few hours later, on the plane back to Berlin, she sounded far better.
Special rewards for state guests
Overall, however, this was a pleasurable journey for Merkel. Foreign policy is traditionally an area that offers Chancellors the better hours. Maybe this is another reason why Merkel still does not want to give way, that she wants to add a 15th to the 14th year of the reign, and then another 16. And India has special rewards for state guests.
Friday morning, official welcome, the President's Palace. The chancellor drives up in a black limousine, she is used to that, but not that she is escorted by pretty, proud riders. That looks fabulous. At the end of this route, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is waiting for a short welcome, then Merkel is sitting alone under a canopy, as the Indian Protocol wishes. Before her the gigantic palace, the parade soldiers, in addition the national anthems. For a country of 1.2 billion people, Angela Merkel is currently representing Germany.
She would probably deny that she really needs such surveys, but Chancellor is just after all a very own, an extreme life form, which consists of many moments that do not occur in other lives and disappear forever, when the term expires. This includes meetings with other heads of state.
The Hindu nationalist Modi Merkel can not agree in many ways, but there is a bridge between them, the Merkel also connects with other colleagues. Only they know what it's like to rule a whole country, to take all the responsibility. Only with one like modes can she talk about this topic at eye level. About the pressure, about the rewards.
Prakash Singh / AFP
Merkel with Prime Minister Modi: At eye level
She has spoken with him at a dinner about his controversial decision to lift the status of autonomy for Kashmir and to submit directly to the difficult region. She knows what has to be criticized, but when asked by journalists, she also explains how complex the situation is in Kashmir. She does not apologize, which rather describes the difficult tasks of a head of government. She has a feeling for that, just as Modi certainly has a feeling for her situation. Merkel still belongs to this small, exclusive caste, and she loves to talk about questions of power, down to the last detail. If she is no longer counted among the powerful, that is only half as tingling.
Merkel's main message for India on this trip was to speed up visa applications for skilled workers. For this purpose, a Federal Office for Foreign Affairs is set up in Brandenburg on the Havel, with many new jobs. Otherwise, Merkel and Modi have passed nearly two dozen agreements. It's about digital, about environment, about football, it goes, of course, one could say to Ayurveda, the two countries want to exchange more intense.
In stockings at the tomb of Anti-Merz
India, which can be quite gruff in everyday life, is still considered a home of well-being and comfort, nice for Merkel given the situation at home, and of course she has visited the last residence and cremation site of the most peaceful, gentle politician of all time, Mahatma Gandhis , the anti-Merz. There, like everyone else, she had to take off her shoes, became Chancellor in stockings, but that did not matter to her. At all moments of sublimity, normally she can still do very well, even after 14 years. No airs, although brittle in their official speeches and statements, but lively in a smaller circle. And sometimes funny in her idiom. "It also has to measure," she says, when it should go first.
In one of these small rounds you could understand her so that she does not necessarily consider the dispute in her own party for a doomsday. Can you stand it, you have to endure. From new elections she holds nothing, nothing at all. If she has to face the end of her term, then please slowly, very slowly.
Michael Kappeler / DPA
Merkel with Continental employees: It should be nice
In Delhi, she stayed under the sky, which was not one, but a gray, poisonous state, always friendly and nodding through the days. Nodding is Merkel's mode of listening. She wants to give a good feeling to the people who speak. She nodded as Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who wore a brisk blouson, explained something to journalists in the government plane. She nodded incessantly when she was introduced to a Continental factory near Delhi. Brakes. Catalysts. This and that for the car.
She has listened to so many people in this long chancery, she still does that with patience, as if she were really, really curious about every detail of the automotive industry. But everything does not let her go with her. As she is about to pose for a selfie with a young colleague from Continental, her arm suddenly goes out to tweak the image with two fingers. It should be nice. The guy still does not get it, Merkel intervenes again and corrects, as if she must take it as accurate as once the great cinematographer Michael Ballhaus.
That would be something for the garden arbor, Merkel should one day - just think - actually no longer be Chancellor: make from the pictures of her chancellorship, a beautiful, very personal photo album.
