Shashi Tharoor Quote

How do I pray? Not in any organized form, really; I go to temples sometimes with my family, but they leave me cold. I think of prayer as something intensely personal, a way of reaching my hands out towards my maker. I recite some mantras my parents taught me as a child; there is something reassuring about those ancient words, hallowed by use and repetition over thousands of years.

Shashi Tharoor

How do I pray? Not in any organized form, really; I go to temples sometimes with my family, but they leave me cold. I think of prayer as something intensely personal, a way of reaching my hands out towards my maker. I recite some mantras my parents taught me as a child; there is something reassuring about those ancient words, hallowed by use and repetition over thousands of years.

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About Shashi Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor (Malayalam pronunciation: [ʃɐʃi t̪ɐɾuːr]; born 9 March 1956) is an Indian politician, author, and former diplomat. A member of the Indian National Congress, he has been representing Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, as Member of Parliament since 2009. He is currently the Chairman of Committee on External Affairs. He was formerly an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and 2006 United Nations Secretary-General selection for the post of Secretary-General in 2006. Founder-Chairman of All India Professionals Congress, he formerly served as Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs and on Informational Technology. He has about two dozen titles to his credit and was awarded by World Economic Forum as "Global Leader of Tomorrow".
Born in London and raised in Mumbai and Kolkata, Tharoor graduated from St. Stephen's College, Delhi, in 1975 and culminated his studies in 1978 with a doctorate in International Relations and Affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. At the age of 22, he was the youngest person at the time to receive such an honour from the Fletcher School. From 1978 to 2007, Tharoor was a career official at the United Nations, rising to the rank of Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information in 2001. He announced his retirement after finishing second in the 2006 selection for U.N. Secretary-General to Ban Ki-moon.
In 2009, Tharoor began his political career by joining the Indian National Congress and successfully represented the party from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala by winning in the Lok Sabha elections and becoming a member of parliament four times in 2009, 2014, 2019 and 2024. During the Congress-led UPA government, Tharoor served as Minister of State for External Affairs. A non-loyalist of the Gandhis, Tharoor was defeated by Mallikarjun Kharge to be elected as party president in 2022. He is currently a member of the Congress Working Committee, which is the highest decision-making body of the Indian National Congress.
A Sahitya Akademi Award winner, Tharoor has authored many works of fiction and non-fiction since 1981. Popular for his command of the English language, Tharoor was the most followed Indian on Twitter before being overtaken by Narendra Modi.