IN GOOD COMPANY

Shashi Tharoor

Member of Parliament & Author

“When I was a child, my mother used to read out books to me… she says she was such a terrible narrator that I snatched the book from her and began reading it myself by the time I was three-years-old. I think reading is absolutely indispensable. I grew up in an India where there were no televisions, no computers or Playstations, and the mobile phone hadn’t been dreamt of. If you needed a distraction—and, in my case, it was more than just a distraction because I was an asthmatic child, frequently confined to bed and unable to go out and play with his friends—reading was my education, entertainment, and escape. Books opened all sorts of possibilities by Jawaharlal Nehru, which was his exploration of the history, culture, and evolution of our country, written during the peak of the battle for independence. Certainly, a lot of my own thinking and ideas are shamelessly echoed in the path that Nehru paved. I consider it a signal achievement as a work of intellectual contribution to Indian political identity, informing what has gone into creating the India that is worth preserving, fighting for, and cherishing.”