I was never a cardholder. But I was leftist in the sense that I voted communist.

When the world is itself draped in the mantle of night, the mirror of the mind is like the sky in which thoughts twinkle like stars.

When you have counted eighty years and more, Time and Fate will batter at your door; But if you should survive to be a hundred, Your life will be death to the very core.

I discovered that a diplomat's life is largely entertaining and meeting people. At the end of the day there's nothing. So I gave up.

I still think that the point of reference for every Indian when he is in doubt on any political or social issue is to say, "What would [Mahatma] Gandhi have done under the circumstances?" I didn't subscribe to his fads - prohibition, celibacy, no doctors - but generally he was always right. He meant more to me than any of my gurus.

I think the sense of belonging does give you a certain amount of mental satisfaction.

I am prolific. Any rubbish I write gets published, so books keep churning out.