| "The `world I see around me' has certainly changed enormously since my first column was written... At the same time, there is much that has not changed." |
WHEN I first appeared in this space, I could scarcely have believed that I would be marking the sixth anniversary of this column today. This column — as even its rather hastily-tossed-off name implies — was conceived almost as a whim, thanks to the charm and persistence of The Hindu's editors, and its longevity was anything but assured. But most important, the editors granted your eponymous columnist the license to be himself.
Looking back
"My world is a complicated one", I wrote in that first piece on April Fool's Day 2001, "and I hope to reflect some of its complexities in this column. I am both an Indian writer and a United Nations official, and though you will hear from me in the former capacity, the latter will not entirely be absent".
So it is perhaps fitting that this sixth anniversary also marks the first day on which I will no longer speak as a United Nations official, having just ended my career as an international civil servant a month shy of 29 years. The U.N. and its concerns did not feature extensively in this space, but it popped up from time to time, whether I was musing on global governance or mourning the tragic loss of my friend and colleague Sergio Vieira de Mello to a Baghdad bomb. It is an institution bravely trying to do its best in a world more in need of international co-operation than ever, and I have been proud to play my part in its tumultuous history.
On the world around
But my U.N. service was only incidental to the columnist's project. "I will share my thoughts with you on the world I see around me and some of the problems I come across," I had said in that first piece, adding my intention to write about "the books I read and the people I meet, the issues I care about and sometimes, quite simply, ideas I find diverting". Looking back on the century and more of pieces I have inflicted on this space, I find that I have kept that promise.
The "world I see around me" has certainly changed enormously since that first column was written. Six years ago "9/11" had not happened, the Taliban were still in power in Afghanistan, the Bush Administration was preaching the virtues of humility in international affairs, Tony Blair seemed invulnerable, the BJP was at its peak in burnishing India to a glossy shine, and not even the most devoted cricket fan had heard the names Pathan or Dhoni. At the same time, there is much that has not changed in these six years: the Chinese economy gallops on, the U.N. Security Council seems no closer to reform, West Asia lurches from one crisis to the next, and Aishwarya Rai is romantically linked to another Bollywood star. As the French like to say, plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. (The more things change, the more they stay the same.)
But it is a world in which India has become ever more relevant, a country no longer on the margins of international discourse. In 2001 we were still heady with the euphoria of President Clinton's long-delayed visit during his last year in office; in 2007, every world leader, and many a wannabe, has beaten a path to our door, and Delhiites are practically blasé about yet another global statesman fouling up traffic around Rashtrapati Bhavan. The India I write about, and the Indians I write for, have become more confident, more prosperous, more self-assured, and more assertive.
Source of delight
"I will try to be straight with you", I wrote while concluding that first column six years ago, "and in turn I hope you will engage with me. I would like nothing better than for this column to become an extended and amicable conversation, informed and sometimes impassioned but never insipid, about things that matter both to me and to the reflective readers of this distinguished newspaper". That was a pious hope, but that it has indeed been attained is thanks to you, my faithful readers. Your emails, faxes, aerogrammes and letters have been a source of unending delight and satisfaction (and quite often, of material for follow-up columns). I have learned a great deal from you, and you have given me the great luxury, for an NRI, of staying connected — connected to the minds, and sometimes the hearts, of the people who regularly read this remarkable newspaper and who in so many ways represent the best of what makes India India.