At 1.20 p.m. on a day in June, Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor strode into the lobby of his apartment building. Since he was ahead of his aides, I approached him.
“Hello, Mr. Tharoor,” I said.
“Hi,” he replied. “Your name?”
“I am Shevlin,” I said.
“As in Shevlin Sebastian,” he said. “I remember the byline.”
You can imagine what this did to me. The last time I met Shashi Tharoor was over ten years ago. And it is very unusual for non-journalists to use the word byline.
When journalists meet for the first time, and we exchange names, sometimes we say, “Oh yes, I have seen your byline.”
We keep track of who writes what, when and where.
But when Tharoor said this, I realised he had been interacting with journalists for decades now. Plus, he is an avid reader of newspapers. So Tharoor may have filed some names away in his phenomenal memory.
Of course, the prosaic explanation is that, most probably, his aide would have told him a journalist would be meeting him at 1 p.m. and mentioned the name.
I showed him the cover of my non-fiction book, ‘The Stolen Necklace.’
“It has been published by HarperCollins," I said.
"What's the story?" he said, as we walked towards the entrance of his ground-floor apartment.
As he heard the early bits of the narration, he immediately said, “I have heard about this case. Didn’t it happen in North Kerala?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“What happened to the cop?” he said.
“Nothing,” I replied.
“No disciplinary action?” he said.
“No,” I said.
“Very sad,” he said, shaking his head.
Inside his apartment, the striking feature was that the books written by Tharoor were pasted high up on a wall, just near a wooden ceiling.
As we conversed, a man appeared. He turned out to be a director on a TV channel. He gave a wedding card to Tharoor. It was his daughter’s marriage. Tharoor’s aide seemed to have informed him earlier about the matter.
Tharoor immediately said, “I am sorry I cannot come to the wedding because I have a function in Kochi.”
But he promised he would come another day.
I asked him whether he would read the book.
“To be honest, I am exhausted by this work [as an MP]. I rarely get time," he said. “But I do get time on planes. So I will read it. I have always liked your writing style.”
A journalist friend who knows Tharoor said that he is a master at speed reading. Apparently, he only has to scan a page with his eyes. I don’t know how true this is. But in less than 24 hours, he put out a tweet. It was succinct and explained the book well.
Here is the tweet:
‘Pleased to receive a copy of “The Stolen Necklace” from journalist @Shevlin_S, the true-life story of a gross miscarriage of justice in Kerala, when an innocent man was jailed and ruined on suspicion of being a necklace thief.
‘This was the result of a shoddy investigation that relied on his passing resemblance to the real culprit on CCTV footage.
‘Shevlin Sebastian writes well, and the story is full of lessons for our policing and justice systems.’
Tharoor has been brilliant for a long time.
Here is an entry from Wikipedia: Tharoor was awarded the Robert B. Stewart Prize for the best student at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. He was also the first editor of the Fletcher Forum of International Affairs. At 22, he was the youngest person to receive a doctorate in the history of the Fletcher School.
Tharoor had a 29-year career at the United Nations where he became Under Secretary-General. He quit the organisation in 2007. And at age 51, he had the courage, tenacity, and determination to embark on a new career in politics. Tharoor has made a success of it by becoming a three-term MP. How many people can have two successful back-to-back careers? Only a handful, I think.
In person, Tharoor radiates charm and a down-to-earth manner.
We can only hope that one day, he will become the Chief Minister of Kerala, and through a throw of the dice, why not, even the Prime Minister of India.
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