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Photo by Sergei Grits / AP

The thankfully dead Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi used to cut quite a dash in his collection of outlandish admirals’ uniforms and silk-tassled robes and vestments, and it was his custom, whenever travelling abroad, to require that his hosts make such arrangements as would permit him to reassemble a gigantic Bedouin tent, in order to receive guests, dine and retire at the end of his busy day.

Trudeau has not done anything quite that weird.

But nobody seems quite sure why Trudeau is travelling around India with his wife and his children and an entourage of cabinet ministers and MPs and various officials and a celebrity chef from Vancouver.

It has struck the BBC’s Ayeshea Perera that the point of it “appears to be a series of photo ops cunningly designed to showcase his family’s elaborate traditional wardrobe.” There sure doesn’t seem to be much business to attend to. A half-day here, a meeting there, perhaps a whole day all told out of an eight-day state visit set aside for what you might call state business.

Straight away, the tone was just weird.

Photo by Sean Kilpatrick / THE CANADIAN PRESS

There he was with his wife Sophie Gregoire and their children, Ella Grace, Xavier and Hadrien, at one mood-setting location after another, posing. And in elaborate costume. Different location shoot, a different costume. Oh look, here they are at the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad. And now they’re at the Mathura Wildlife Sanctuary, with the elephants Maya, Bijlee and Lakshmi!