“ On election days, the burdens of poverty and corruption and of a creaky economic system are put aside, and India celebrates. Many voters dress especially for the occasion... None quite voice the thoug… Shashi Tharoor
“ 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… Shashi Tharoor
“ India, under Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, accounts for 27 per cent of the world economy. Shashi Tharoor
“ They say every dog has its day, Ganapathi, but for this terrier twilight came before tea-time. Shashi Tharoor
“ India is my country, and in that sense my outrage is personal. But I seek nothing from history—only an account of itself. Shashi Tharoor
“ With the absorption of each native state, the (East India) company official John Sullivan observed in 1840s: The little court disappears--the capital decays--trade languishes--the capital decays--the… Shashi Tharoor
“ 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. Shashi Tharoor
“ The Mahabharata declares, 'What is here is nowhere else; what is not here, is nowhere. Shashi Tharoor
“ 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. Shashi Tharoor
“ One of the more difficult questions I used to find myself being asked as a United Nations official, especially when I had been addressing a generalist audience, was: What is the single most important… Shashi Tharoor
“ India is not, as people keep calling it, an underdeveloped country, but rather, in the context of its history and cultural heritage, a highly developed one in an advanced state of decay. Shashi Tharoor
“ 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… Shashi Tharoor
“ When a marauder destroys your house and takes away your cash and jewellery , his responsibility for his actions far exceeds that of the servant who opened door to him, whether out of fear, cupidity or… Shashi Tharoor
“ Who knows whence this creation had its origin?He, whether He fashioned it or whether He did not,He, who surveys it all from the highest heaven,He knows—or maybe even He does not know.— Rig Veda, X.129… Shashi Tharoor
“ I do not look to history to absolve my country of the need to do things right today. I seek to understand the wrongs of yesterday, both to grasp what has brought us to our present reality and to under… Shashi Tharoor
“ As we embark upon the twenty-first century, it seems ironically clear that tomorrow’s anarchy might still be due, in no small part, to yesterday’s colonial attempts at order. I have no wish to give th… Shashi Tharoor
“ Five decades ago, as India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, began visibly ailing, the nation and the world were consumed by the question: 'After Nehru, who?' The inexpressible fear lay in the… Shashi Tharoor
“ The notion of 'world leadership' is a curiously archaic one. The very phrase is redolent of Kipling ballads and James Bondian adventures. What makes a country a world leader? Is it population, in whic… Shashi Tharoor
