One From The Heart

Also, of what India means to him, Indian-turned expatriate in his twenties. On Seventies Socialism, then. Tharoor recounts Indira Gandhi's remark made in a moment of rare candour to an American reporter: "I can't say I believe in any ism. I wouldn't say I'm interested in socialism as socialism. To me it's just a tool". A cynical departure from Nehru's Fabian romanticism that in a sense sums up the difference in the political styles of the father and daughter. Tharoor's take on secularism is brutally honest: "Muslim politicians developed a vested interest in minorityhood" and the Indian State "in its perpetuation". Logic: support the leaders of the minority, pre-empt their radicalisation vis-a-vis the State by giving them no cause to fear it to coopt them into the mainstream. Thus, unlike the army and civil services, in the political realm leaders derived their clout not from their intellectual but their religious credentials. Tharoor quotes a 'backward' caste friend to highlight the particularly Indian dilemma over reservation. "If efficiency is more important than representation," says the 'backward' friend acidly, "we should never have asked the British to leave".

I'd unreservedly recommend the Schedule Caste, Unscheduled Change chapter where Tharoor elevates the simple tale of his SC friend Charlis' evolving relationship with him and his family to the level of a poignant parable. A metaphor for the change that has overtaken a people, a community, a country. This expat-since-he-was-22 UN official's perceptive observation on NRI 'guilt' needs to be mulled over: "The attitude of the expatriate to his homeland is that of the faithless lover who blames the woman he's spurned for not having sufficiently merited his fidelity". Tharoor highlights the political penury of a nation that would fain hand over the prime ministerial chair to a builder's daughter from Turino with no college degree, just a famous surname pedigree to recommend her. "They think of her as the nation's bahu," he records Cambridge-educated Congressman Mani Shankar Aiyer as saying. "The Congress has always needed one unquestioned figure at the top, a monarch if you like." Ergo, Empress Sonia Regina.

So does Tharoor despair for the country? No. Just loves it, warts and all. Caste and class, carts and cellulars, religions and riots: nothing matters. What does, is the memory of "steaming breakfast idlis, pungent coconut chutney, of lissome women in saris the colours of paradise, of throngs of working men pouring from a brown and ochre train" To Tharoor, India is where he stands in the sun and feels himself whole again in his own skin. Not statistics, substance alone. This time round, Tharoor also has soul.