Dr. Shashi Tharoor is a diplomat, author and journalist. He was the former Under Secretary-General of the United Nations. He is now the chairman of Dubai-based Afras Ventures.

What does spirituality mean to you?
It is the acknowledgment of forces larger than myself. They are not immediately graspable by the daily concerns of one’s consciousness. But they reflect yearnings for things beyond oneself as well as the reality that transcends the mundane, daily life. The awareness of those forces is not something rational. It is an act of conviction, an instinctive feeling I have almost always had in my life.

Do you believe you are guided and protected by a superior force?
I have felt many times in irrational ways the presence of a guiding hand, especially and more strongly after the passing away of my father. Could it simply be explained by the psychology of bereavement, or the sense that I was no longer accountable only to myself, but also to his spirit? I am not sure, especially as this feeling has slightly faded away over the years — this happened fifteen years ago. The shock of losing him so young (he was only 63) and as I was so close to him may have something to do with it. It basically caused the deepest pain and deepest soul searching of my life. I had a sense of regret since I could never talk to him again. And the most consoling thing I realized was: when you are physically far away from someone you love, you know you can be in touch through the occasional phone, letter, or travel. Yet, when they have left this world, they are always with you. In some ways, I took that in very deeply. I was very conscious of my father’s good wishes when he was alive, but they became a permanent feature of myself for many years after his passing away, I was very conscious of his presence.

I also believe that the world poses more questions than science and rationality could ever answer. There are too many examples of paranormal phenomena for instance. But I do have a lot of scepticism when it comes to psychics, astrologers and other types of people professing an understanding of it all. When I was running for the Secretary General of the U.N. post for instance, I cannot tell you how many astrologers told me victory was assured. And of course it was not.

On the overall, the concept of the divine very much talks to me. It does so in the Upanishad sense of the word, as something ultimately unknowable by human beings. And with the idea that all worship, all prayers are means for human beings through their own imperfection to reach out to that they cannot touch. This is why it makes perfect sense to me that there may be 333,000 different manifestations of gods and goddesses. None is more accurate than the other since nobody has actually seen the face of God. We can only imagine It. So there is no harm in imagining God as a woman with five arms or a man on a cross. These are crotches for human’s imagination because they have difficulty fathoming the abstract, and praying to it.

Do you believe you have a special mission or purpose in this life?
I feel so very strongly. I have argued consistently that the only purpose of life is to leave this planet in a bit of a better state. If life was only about eating bread, why would that be — to survive? But then survive to do what? To eat more bread? It would make no sense. So to me, it is about enriching life and in turn, being enriched by it. That is why beyond finding material comfort, the arts, culture, the world of ideas are so important to me. And whatever I venture into, I really try to do my best. Even if it does not succeed, striving for it is what matters. Not trying would be the unforgivable thing.

As a child, one goes through different phases and desires. Before I was even ten years old, my grand-father told me I should become an IAS officer. He was living in a village in Kerala and those officers had an impact on the lives of millions. Then I thought I should have an impact on world affairs, so I wanted to be an IFS officer. But when it was time to sit for those exams, the government declared emergency. So I refused to go ahead with the exams, as I could not see myself serve a government capable of such a move.

Academia — as I had just completed my PhD, journalism — as I had been writing since I was a child — or international affairs were then the three options left. I ended up at the U.N. in Geneva, thinking I would spend there a year only. And of course, it lasted twenty-nine instead. I went from dealing with refugees — the Boat People crisis — to Peacekeeping Operations in Yugoslavia and then undersecretary general at the New York headquarters. The U.N. basically became the platform I was given as an Indian without resources, to have some sort of impact, to make a difference.

And when my candidacy to the post of Secretary General did not succeed in 2007, it was a huge, dramatic change in my life. I have learnt to accept it as what was meant to be. But I had embarked on that race with the goal of winning of course. And it was a real shock. I have tried since then to embrace the Hindu view about it — when you embark on a journey with a certain purpose and have an accident, it turns out the accident itself was the purpose. What is intended up there sometimes does not match the desire we have down here.
So as all that unfolded, I had no idea what I would do next. It was like rebooting a computer. A vast number of opportunities came to me and I entertained almost all of them since I was so unclear about what to do and be next.

Then I found this arrangement, an involvement in the private sector — something I had never done before — which would give me the necessary infrastructure (an assistant, an office…) and the freedom to pursue a wide range of interests. So even though I am no longer part of a large organization such as the U.N., I can still serve a number of purposes. I sit on the board of 33 institutions (maybe a bit too much!), in the fields of human rights, humanitarian action, culture, and education. And I find it all quite constructive and fulfilling. It is way too early to say what will come out of it all. All setbacks look pretty back when they happen and I lack the perspective to say what it was meant for. In the meantime, I must say it is a quite liberating experience, since it has freed me to pursue a number of things that otherwise I would have never done.

What is spirituality for you in your day to day life?
I am very conscious of the higher powers in my daily life. When I can, I pray. When I do not manage to pray in a formal way, I silently think of a superior power. I do so using a picture my parents used to have in their puja room, Ram and Sita surrounded by the main gods. Years later, I had found it in a book published by the former Greek ambassador in Delhi. And I always have it in my home-made altar, so I can imagine my worship through an illustration I have seen since I was a baby.

[An interview from 2008 with Nadine Kreisberger of the Indian Express]