Goa, Aug. 16 -- BY INVITATION Vivek Menezes

Manohar Parrikar ushered Narendra Modi to power with his famous 2009 comments about L K Advani, the main other contender for BJP leadership at the time: "It is like a pickle which takes a year to mature. But if it is kept for two years or so, it gets rancid. Advani's period is more or less over . another couple of years . and after that he should act as a guardian or mentor for the party. [We] should give prominence to leaders who are between 40 and 60 years." The master politician, whose oversized shadow still looms over Goa in 2024, seven years after his 2019 death, would have surely had an equally choice analysis to offer his party and avowed brother-in-arms today (notice how Modi is now 73)...