My connection with Calcutta stretches back a long way. It goes back at least to 1857, the year of what my maternal great-grandfather would have calle… - Mark Tully

I am very proud not just of my connection with Calcutta but my connection with India which is approaching 50 years now. I do not like being called an expat. That's why I do hope to become an Overseas Citizen of India. That will mean I will be acknowledged as a citizen of the two countries I feel I belong to, India and Britain. I will bring together the two nationalities which were separated during my childhood.

In the 78 years since I was born in what I hope I am still entitled to call Calcutta - not Tollygunge - all this has rightly been swept aside, and my life bears no resemblance to my childhood. Almost all my friends in India are Indian. I have an Indian son-in-law and an Indian daughter-in-law. I do know an Indian language, although I would know it a lot better if more people would speak to me in Hindi rather than English.

Whenever I go and give a talk on Hinduism, and when I say something nice about it, invariably someone from the audience will object: "I think Hinduism is a disgusting religion because of the caste system."