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9f9c847
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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.
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Shashi Tharoor |
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5cf564b
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Hindu fundamentalism is a contradiction in terms, since Hinduism is a religion without fundamentals; there is no such thing as a Hindu heresy. How dare a bunch of goondas shrink the soaring majesty of the Vedas and the Upanishads to the petty bigotry of their brand of identity politics?
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Shashi Tharoor |
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d1de8b0
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If America is a melting-pot, then to me India is a thali, a selection of sumptuous dishes in different bowls. Each tastes different, and does not necessarily mix with the next, but they belong together on the same plate, and they complement each other in making the meal a satisfying repast.
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Shashi Tharoor |
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3b22be5
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The sun never set on the British empire, an Indian nationalist later sardonically commented, because even God couldn't trust the Englishman in the dark
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Shashi Tharoor |
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ae621d7
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Great discoveries, Ganapathi, are often the result of making the wrong mistake at the right time.
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Shashi Tharoor |
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fd1c42c
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Bombs and bullets alone cannot destroy India, because Indians will pick their way through the rubble and carry on as they have done throughout history.
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Shashi Tharoor |
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f825618
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Why does man need bread? To survive. But why survive if it is only to eat more bread? To live is more than just to sustain life - it is to enrich, and be enriched by, life.
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india
life
enriching-life
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Shashi Tharoor |
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692a007
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The Mahabharata declares, 'What is here is nowhere else; what is not here, is nowhere.
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mahabharata
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Shashi Tharoor |
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db64ecd
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I do not look to history to absolve my country of the need to do things right today. Rather I seek to understand the wrongs of yesterday, both to grasp what has brought us to our present reality and to understand the past for itself. The past is not necessarily a guide to the future, but it does partly help explain the present. One cannot, as I have written elsewhere, take revenge upon history; history is its own revenge. One
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Shashi Tharoor |
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b2d8c0d
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They say every dog has its day, Ganapathi, but for this terrier twilight came before tea-time.
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humor
mahabharata
indian
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Shashi Tharoor |
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03c91e6
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The joke is that one Bengali is a poet, two Bengalis is an argument, three Bengalis is a political party,
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Shashi Tharoor |
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078fe25
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Opening lines of The Great Indian Novel narrated as a modern day MahaBharata. They tell me India is an underdeveloped country. They attend seminars, appear on television, even come to see me, creasing their eight-hundred-rupee suits and clutching their moulded plastic briefcases, to announce in tones of infinite understanding that India has yet to develop. Stuff and nonsense, of course.
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Shashi Tharoor |
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7bb9cfb
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While he was alive, he was impossible to ignore; once he had gone, he was impossible to imitate.
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Shashi Tharoor |
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755304a
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Hinduism, with its openness, its respect for variety, its acceptance of all other faiths, is one religion that should be able to assert itself without threatening others.
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Shashi Tharoor |
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066ccbc
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The past is not necessarily a guide to the future, but it does partly help explain the present.
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present
history
past
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Shashi Tharoor |
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372153f
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All knowledge is transient, linked to the world around it and subject to change as the world changes.
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Shashi Tharoor |
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e865323
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Rabindranath Tagore put it gently to a Western audience in New York in 1930: 'A great portion of the world suffers from your civilisation.' Mahatma Gandhi was blunter: asked what he thought of Western civilization, he replied, 'It would be a good idea'. 'The
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Shashi Tharoor |
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7f59df7
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History, in any case, cannot be reduced to some sort of game of comparing misdeeds in different eras; each period must be judged in itself and for its own successes and transgressions. The
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Shashi Tharoor |
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775cf44
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An India that denies itself to some of us could end up being denied to all of us. This would be a second Partition: and a partition in the Indian soul would be as bad as a partition in the Indian soil. For my sons, the only possible idea of India is that of a nation greater than the sum of its parts. An India neither Hindu nor Muslim, but both. That is the only India that will allow them to continue to call themselves Indians.
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partition
minority
religions
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Shashi Tharoor |
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0710e8f
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Indians paid, in other words, for the privilege of being conquered by the British.
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Shashi Tharoor |
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13baff4
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We literally paid for our own oppression.
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Shashi Tharoor |
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ad1b81b
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We must not be deluded into making concessions, whether on Kashmir or any other issue, in the naive expectation that these would end the hostility of the ISI and its cohorts. We must understand that Pakistan's fragile sense of self-worth rests on its claim to be superior to India, stronger and more valiant than India, richer and more capable than India. This is why the killers of 26/11 struck the places they did, because their objective was..
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Shashi Tharoor |
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4431ace
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India is my country, and in that sense my outrage is personal.
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Shashi Tharoor |
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b12631f
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It) is to one British colonial policy-maker or another that we owe the Boxer Rebellion, the Mau Mau insurrection, the Boer War, and the Boston Tea Party
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Shashi Tharoor |
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bce2d90
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While God waits for his temple to be built of love, man brings stones.' Or
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Shashi Tharoor |
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1276649
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am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to southern India and to..
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Shashi Tharoor |
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107f092
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At the beginning of the eighteenth century, as the British economic historian Angus Maddison has demonstrated, India's share of the world economy was 23 per cent, as large as all of Europe put together. (It had been 27 per cent in 1700, when the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb's treasury raked in PS100 million in tax revenues alone.) By the time the British departed India, it had dropped to just over 3 per cent. The reason was simple: India was go..
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Shashi Tharoor |
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439b7f5
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but as an Indian, I find it far easier to forgive than to forget.
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Shashi Tharoor |
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ccea634
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Hinduism is great for encouraging social peace, because everyone basically believes their suffering in this life is the result of misdeeds in a past one... So Hinduism is the best antidote to Marxism.
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Shashi Tharoor |
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71ea504
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It was not just the maharajas who had to suffer: every Indian schoolchild must lament the influence of the British dress code on Indians--especially the tie as a permanent noose around the necks of millions of schoolchildren, in India's sweltering heat, even today.
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Shashi Tharoor |
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a90f58b
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India's rape law, enshrined in the colonial-era Indian Penal Code, placed the burden of the victim to establish her 'good character' and prove that a rape had occurred, which left her open to discredit by opposing counsel. Many rapes were never reported as a result of the humiliation to which this system subjected the victims.
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Shashi Tharoor |
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dea0f48
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Alex von Tunzelmann's clever start to her book Indian Summer made my point most tellingly: 'In the beginning, there were two nations. One was a vast, mighty and magnificent empire, brilliantly organized and culturally unified, which dominated a massive swath of the earth. The other was an undeveloped, semifeudal realm, riven by religious factionalism and barely able to feed its illiterate, diseased and stinking masses. The first nation was ..
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Shashi Tharoor |
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24db533
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If ever the Empire comes to ruin, Heaslop, mark my words, the British publisher will be to blame.
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Shashi Tharoor |
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6d9640b
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Nehru, speaking of his country's dreams, said: 'Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart. Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.' It
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Shashi Tharoor |
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f5bf6d0
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Gangaji's truth required activism, not passivity.
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Shashi Tharoor |
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6c57848
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In Indian culture, the woman of the house -- the embodiment of the family's honor -- treasures her gold jewelry both as her soundest asset and as the symbol of her status.
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Shashi Tharoor |
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71f125c
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When we kill people, we feel compelled to pretend that it is for some higher cause. It is this pretence of virtue, I promise you, that will never be forgiven by history.
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killing
history
justification
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Shashi Tharoor |
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6423e23
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And then, of course, there was the sari itself. What a garment, Randy! There isn't another outfit in the world that balances better the twin feminine urges to conceal and reveal. It outlines the woman's shape but hides the faults a skirt can't -- under a sari a heavy behind, unflattering legs are invisible. But it also reveals the midriff, a part of the anatomy most Western women hide all the time. I was mesmerized, Randy, by the mere fact ..
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sari
sexual-attraction
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Shashi Tharoor |
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61050f2
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He leaned towards the young man, his eyes, mouth and face all round in concentration. '"There was a banned crow,"' he intoned sonorously. '"There was a cold day." Not bad, eh? I learned those on the boat. Sounds like perfect Urdu, I'm told.' He paused and frowned. 'The devil of it is remembering which one means, "close the door," and which one will get someone to open it."
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Shashi Tharoor |
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b4001d7
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As I was typing this last sentence, somewhat hastily, my computer's spellcheck offered 'Brutish' as an acceptable substitute for 'British' rule in India!
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Shashi Tharoor |
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00c1003
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The ISI may well be Pakistan's answer to the Holy Roman Empire, which was neither holy, Roman nor an empire: it
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Shashi Tharoor |
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9ce28f1
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In debate he thought high and aimed low.
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Shashi Tharoor |
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15bca8e
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India is not an underdeveloped country but a highly developed one in an advanced state of decay.
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Shashi Tharoor |
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8180dfd
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national television broadcast a fifty-two-episode serialization of the Mahabharata, the script was written by a Muslim poet, Dr. Rahi Masoom Raza.
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Shashi Tharoor |