'Hi, Rahul'?

Rahul Gandhi asked a gaggle of college girls to address him as 'Rahul' rather than 'Sir'. 

I have no quarrel with his personal preferences - maybe, as one commentator has suggested, pushing 50, he enjoys teenagers dealing with him more like a peer than an uncleji - and democracy is all very well, but is that how an aspiring prime minister should behave? Does it not take away much of the gravitas which has always been considered essential to the position? Should a president or PM aim at being a passing celebrity with overgrown children like a cricketer or pop star?

Even in the US, where they are very informal about most things, they habitually say 'Mr. President' or 'Sir' when addressing the Chief Executive. Are we trying to become more Yankee than the Yankees?

I am a mere small-town private tutor. But thank God no current or ex-pupil, or their parents, unless they are much older and close to the family, would dream of addressing me as 'Suvro'!