Elavancherry is a location director's dream come true. The single lane road, which meanders through lush paddy fields, is framed against rolling hills shrouded in a fine mist. The landscape is as delectable as the idlis Shasshi Tharoor has just polished off with his favourite onion and red chillies chutney. "I make idlis in New York", says the celebrated writer, who is also Under- Secretary-General (Communication and Public Information) of the United Nations. "But you cannot get the local red chillies there. So it's not quite the same thing".

Tharoor is on a vacation to his ancestral home, Mundarath, in Palaklad, Kerala, with sons Ishan and Kanishk. Mundarath is a typical Nair tharawad, sitting on the edge of paddy fields, and as in a Nair family, the women are more visible. Tharoor's mother, grandmother, aunts, uncle and cousins are all excited that Elavancherry's most famous son, who joined the UN at the age of 22 and charted a meteoric career, is back after two years. The twins love visiting India, too, and watching test cricket. "They start in Yale this fall", says the proud father.

Most of this high profile diplomat's writing has been about India. The subject of his two forthcoming books are also Indian: one with M.F. Husain on Kerala, and a biography of Jawaharlal Nehru. Excepts from an interview:

What is about India that excites you so much?

We are an extraordinary thing in this world. We are actually a country based on an idea. An idea that emerge from a shared history, a common geographical space and a common ancient civilisation. And at the same time, sustained by our pluralist democracy . I believe the future of the world lies in states like ours that promote the co-existence of people of different languages, ethnic backgrounds and so on. Intellectually I am excited by what India stands for.

India seems not intellectual…it is an emotional rush.

At the level of individual passion, let's look at my own life. I was born to Malayali parents in London; brought up in Mumbai, Kolkata and Dehli. My children's mother is half Bengali, half Kashmiri…and (laughs) by the time they marry a Gujarati or an Assamese, we will have the entire country flowing trough our family. To me there is an excitement that all this is in our heritage. I like brushing teeth while out at the paddy fields, like the roar of the crowds at a cricket match, I like my breakfast idlis and my Roshomalai for dessert . I feel various parts of India coursing through my veins.

Is there the danger of romanticizing an India that was and ignoring an India that is?

No. In my writing I have tied to deal with the India that is. It's not as if I am blinkered about the things that are going wrong. But I think that in order to criticize, you need to be able to form positive visions as well. There is a lot of destructive criticism in our country . And a lot of it is ultimately cynical and futile .

What is the unique Indian perspective you have contributed as a writer?

I try to explore the whole notion of India, and what it means civilisationally, politically and personally. So if my body of work have published six books so far, and there's a seventh one, a very short one with M.F Husain on Kerala collectively stands for anything, it is this exploration of Indianess. And I do know that this is something that has been noticed and appreciated elsewhere as well . Secondly, I have always believed the very word novel implies an obligation to do something new each time. So I have tried to experiment not only with the tales I have told, but also with the telling of it. I tried this in my three novels - The Great Indian Novel, Show Business and Riot. I want to write things that provoke people to think and interrogate themselves.

So what next?

I have been working on a short biography on Jawaharlal Nehru. The idea is to have a book that tries to situate Nehru in his place and his time from perspective of today.

Will this be a fictionalized narrative?

No. It will be a straight-forward narrative. No experiments this time . Nehru is a man of immense importance for the India I am talking about. Nehru's legacy is a very clear legacy and I would like to focus upon what that has meant to India and what is being lost.