A man's past keeps growing, even when his future has come to a full stop.

I grew up, as many Indians do, in an archipelago of tongues. My maternal grandfather, who was a surgeon in the city of Madras, was fluent in at least four languages and used each of them daily.

In my family, as in most middle-class Indian families I knew when I was growing up, science and mathematics were held in awe.

If only a man could spit his past out so easily.

I was looking for the key for years But the door was always open

Columbia University, where I went to study in 1993, insisted its undergraduates learn a foreign language, so I discovered French.

Like most people who live in India, I complain about corruption, but know that I can live with corrupt men. It is the honest ones I secretly worry about.