However, the writer-politician still fills his flying visits with talks, book launches and meetings. Between warding off Malayalee filmmakers who want him to act and trying to finish a 'non-scholarly' work on India's foreign policy, the former minister opens up to Nandini Krishnan about his writing, the ups and downs of his entry into politics, and his dreams for India.
You are working on a book right now. You came out with Shadows Across the Playing Field weeks after assuming your portfolio. How do you find the time to write?
(Laughs) Oh, yes, Shadows Across the Playing Field...Yeah, except that I wrote it in the summer of '08, at the time India-Pakistan cricket relations had just completed a period of sixty years.
It was published unusually late. It should have been out by January, when India was supposed to be touring Pakistan. However, that tour got cancelled after 26/11. So the book got delayed. I couldn't have written it as a minister, I assure you.
Speaking of becoming minister, after all the things you had said in The Great Indian Novel, specifically with the character of Priya Duryodhani, the Congress is the last party one would have expected you to represent.
No, as I explained during the election campaign, when my opponents tried to make capital of my earlier writings, I am not fighting the election of 1977. The world has changed, the country has changed, the party has changed, the issues of the period I wrote about are not the issues of today.
I mean, at that point, there seemed to be a real threat to our democracy. Today, if there is any threat, it is not from my party. There have been undemocratic tendencies elsewhere. So, for me, the Congress party is by far the most attractive of the political options available in the country.
A file photo of Shashi Tharoor (Photograph copyright PTI)
