When Shashi Tharoor talks, you listen.
And then rapidly scramble to parse what he says with a dictionary. But his penchant for multi-syllabic vocabulary and flowery language that has inspired countless memes notwithstanding, the man is a throughly engaging speaker. He is erudite, his diction is flawless, his sense of wit and humor is razor sharp and he exudes a charm that is difficult to resist.
His presentation on his book “An Eta of Darkness - The British Empire in India” was thoughtful and interesting. Most of the questions posed to him in the Q&A that followed were firmly in the political space, in keeping with his position as a minister in the Congress party, seated in Opposition to the right wing BJP which is currently holding the reins.
I was more interested in his writing exploits and had my chance to plumb his thoughts on the writing life when I spoke to him at the book signing thereafter.
He was most gracious to a fellow writer and revealed how happy he was to discuss something other than politics. We had an interesting discussion on writing as a whole and non-fiction in particular. My biggest takeaway concerned a question I posed on how he managed to be so prolific, turning out books which required a fair bit of research along with the actual writing. All while zipping around as a minister, juggling affairs of state with the travails of the page.
“It’s simple, my dear,” he said in that charming and disarming way. “You just don’t sleep.”
Now there’s an idea.
P.S : The man clearly practices what he preaches. The book he was working on at the time of this event, titled “Why I am a Hindu”, has since been released.