On "Priya Duryodhani": She was a slight frail girl, with a thin tapering face like kernel of a mango and dark-brown eyebrows that nearly joined toget… - Shashi Tharoor

There is not a thing as the wrong place, or the wrong time. We are where we are at the only time we have. Perhaps it's where we're meant to be.

We Indians, Arjun, are so good at respecting outward forms while ignoring the substance. We took the forms of parliamentary democracy, preserved them, put them on pedestal and paid them due obeisance. But we ignored the basic fact that parliamentary democracy can only work if those who run it are constantly responsive to needs of the people and if parliamentarians are qualified enough to legislate. Neither condition was fulfilled in India for long. Today most people are simply aware of their own irrelevance to the process. They see themselves standing helplessly on the margins while professional politicians and unprofessional politicians combine to run the country to the ground.

We Indians are notoriously good at being resigned to our lot. Our fatalism goes beyond, even if it springs from, the Hindu acceptance of the world as it is ordained to be. I must tell you a little story - a marvellous fable from our puranas that illustrates our resilience and self-absorption in the face of circumstances. A man is pursued by a tiger. He runs fast, but his panting heart tells him that he cannot run much longer. He sees a tree. Relief! He accelerates and gets to it in one last despairing stride. He climbs the tree. The tiger snarls below him, but he feels that he has at last escaped its snapping jaws...