India shaped my mind, anchored my identity, influenced my beliefs, and made me who I am. ... India matters to me and I would like to matter to India. - Shashi Tharoor

I make no bones about the fact that India matters to me, and I would like to matter to India.

Dissent, is like a Gurkha’s ‘khukri’ , once it emerges form its sheath it must draw blood before it can be put away again.

महान दार्शनिक और भारत के राष्ट्रपति डॉ. सर्वपल्ली राधाकृष्णन ने हिन्दुओं को परिभाषित करते हुए लिखा था — ‘एक साझे इतिहास, साझे साहित्य और साझी सभ्यता वाली विशिष्ट सांस्कृतिक इकाई’।

But no - what’s this? The branch on which he is sitting is weak. That is not all: wood-mice are gnawing away at it: before long they will eat through it and it will snap and fall. The branch sags down over a well. Aha! Escape! Perhaps our hero can swim ? But the well is dry and there are snakes writhing and hissing on its bed. As the branch bends lower, he perceives a solitary blade of grass on wall of well. On top of the blade of grass gleams a drop of honey. What is our hero to do? What action does our puranic man quintessential Indian, take in the situation? He bends with the branch and licks up the honey.... What did you expect? Some neat solution to the problem? The tiger changes its mind and goes away? Amitabh Bachchan leaps to the rescue? Don’t be silly. One strength of Indian mind is that it knows some problems cannot be resolved and it learns to make best of them. That is the Indian answer to the insuperable difficulty. One does not fight against that by which one is certain to be overwhelmed; but one finds the best way, for oneself, to live with it. This is our national aesthetic. Without it, india as we know it could not survive.