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Dr. Shashi Tharoor's Inspirational Speech & Interactions At Sharjah International Book Fair

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engages more of you than for example

watching a television show or playing a

video game I'm not knocking video games

they strengthen other qualities in you

they give you a capacity to use your

motor reflexes to react quickly to make

quick snap judgments all those are

wonderful things in video games and with

a book obviously you're not telling the

story the writer has already told the

story you're merely discovering it but

the great joy of reading is indeed that

joy of discovering it's the discovery of

a story it's a discovery of new words

new vocabulary it's a discovery of new

ideas because other people think

differently from the way you do and you

very rarely get new ideas out of a

videogame but you do get new ideas out

of good creative writing and then of

course there is the sheer pleasure of

concentration we always hear about kids

today having a short attention span well

if you want to enjoy a good book the

process of reading develops and

strengthens your attention span so

that's why I'm delighted to see so many

of you here at a book fair because a

book fair shows despite a few hands I

went up and I said if there are people

here who don't enjoy reading there are a

few still the truth is the most of you

are here because books Masotti I wrote

once in the foreword to one of my books

the writing books are like the Todd

etapas hatchet a toddy tapper uses his

hatchet to cut through a coconut and the

fact is that a book is like a hatchet

that cuts through the rough husk that

enshrouds our minds and helps us tap

into the exhilaration that ferments

within that is what it seems to me books

do for us

and of course for many people even today

there is no greater pleasure than

putting their feet up the good book in

their hands and losing themselves in

another world to me because I loved

reading I began to become a writer when

I was little I was a voracious reader my

mother used to read aloud to me from the

Enid Blyton Nadi books does anyone still

read those any Nadi fans nodding yeah

they're my generation yes but anyone behind

behind

no anyway these are books about dolls

and Toyland myths sounds silly but the

adventures were very interesting and

very well-written and I started reading

my mother says because she read so badly

to me

that I became impatient to read the book

myself so I grabbed it from her and

started learning how to read but I used

to read a lot and I read very rapidly so

one of the problems I had was that as a

small child I was an asthmatic I was

often struggling to breathe because

bronchial asthma constricts the Broncos

in your lungs doesn't let the air come

in and out normally as it should for

everyone and so it was difficult for me

to go out and play with my friends as

much as I wanted to and as I said I

couldn't just stay in bed and watch TV

because there was no TV

so I read and then I exhausted the books

available to me because I had no older

brothers or sisters

I only had the books of my parents or my

own and if my parents took me to a

library to borrow a book I read so

inconveniently fast that I sometimes

finished the book in the car on the way

home so when I reached home I still no

longer had a book to read and that's why

I began writing because lying in bed

struggling to breathe you can't sleep

and at the same time there's nothing

else to do and the one thing I

understood was a joy of reading in the

power of words

so I started filtering those myself and

some of my first stories were very

derivative they were very much like the

stories I was reading so I remember my

first attempt never published was

something called solvers on the trail

why because Enid Blyton the inventor of

the nadi books had a famous series of

books for children called the famous 5

and the 5 find out hers and their secret

7 so again like a little child who only

knows that world I invented the six

solvers except they were in India and

they were solving mysteries in India

mysteries I'm sure very much borrowed

from the kinds of mysteries that Enid

Blyton's characters were solving in

village England now it's a way of

learning how to write because the actual

art of composing a sentence trying to

tell a story trying to unfold a

narrative is best learned by doing I've

always believed that literature and

writing are intimate arts that the way

you write the way you express yourself

in words is as much you as the way in

which you speak or breathe or talk and

so ultimately though your teachers I'm

sure are doing their best to teach you

the basic rules of writing ultimately

your style is your essence is who you

are and the best way you can find out

how well you write whether you can

communicate effectively but other people

look forward to reading what you've

written whether it's a letter or an

email or an essay at school is by

actually doing it by actually writing so

I wrote and my father my mother were

very encouraging my father was amazingly

kind in getting my stories typed up so I

could share them with friends and show

them around and what happened after that

when my friends started reading the

stories and saying god that was exciting

or this should have been done that way

or whatever I began to be

even myself as a writer when I was just

10 years old one of my first short

stories was published and after that

there was no looking back I can tell you

seeing your name in print as the author

of an article the first time or a story

is the equivalent of that first bar of

chocolate or whatever that you owe you

may feel addicted to because you really

want to keep doing it at first ice cream

cone the first time you see your name in

print I kept wanting to keep writing and

I kept writing throughout my school and

college days I'd come home finish my

homework and write articles or stories

for publication in fact a lot of my

teenage stories stories written when I

was a teenager but not necessarily about

teenagers have been published in a

collection called the five-dollar smile

and other stories which is a collection

of stories that were written all of them

before I even turned 20 so the stories

reflect a writer learning his craft and

I would urge you all to try those of you

who raised your hands when I said

anybody wants to be a writer the best

way you can be a writer is to write but

in my view the only way you can be a

good writer is if you're also a good

reader unless you read and read widely

you will not have a good sense of what

can be done with the written word what

others have done how others have weaved

their thoughts and their imagination

into words for you if you can see that

and learn from them then you are in the

best possible place yourself I didn't

want to give you a long lecture because

I agreed with the organizers that today

my real job was to get you to interact

with me by asking questions or making

comments from what you've known about me

in what they've said and shown you I'm

sure that some of you

have things you want to ask me or to say

to me and I'd be very happy to react and

have an interaction is that okay with

all of you would you like to do that yeah

yeah

okay so who's gonna ask the first

question is there um there are mics

going around or there's a line up there

or people coming to our squash all right

okay hello so you have to join the line

if you want to ask a question my

apologies tell me who you are and which

class you're studying in and all of that

morning sir my name is Abhishek Sharma

and I study in Jemez our own Indian

schools I'm in grade 8 my question too

is that as the youth we all have an idol

who has always inspired us so in your

college and school days who was your

idol ah that's a very interesting

question I don't have you all heard it [Applause]

he asked in my school in college days

who was my idol and I have to confess I

didn't have just one idol maybe because

my interests were fairly diverse I had a

number of idols okay so obviously one

Idol had to come from the world of

sports and I had to in cricket

there was this player called Sunil Gavaskar

Gavaskar

who as a young well I can't call him a

boy but as a young man of barely 21 he

went to the West Indies which then was

the most fearsome chess playing country

with fast bowlers who would just a few

years earlier had even broken the head

of the Indian captain Nuri contractor

and he had to go through life with a

steel plate in his head because the

skull was so badly cracked by a West

Indies players bouncer and whenever

India went to the West Indies they

always lost all their matches and here

we had Sunil Gavaskar going there in his

first series and scoring centuries

double centuries making a world record

774 in just four matches and he became a

and then in tennis there was a player

called Vijay Amritraj and Vijay was a

player who as a teenager used to thrash

everybody through a very bold and

attractive style of play in his heyday

he beat every great player in the world

I'm sorry to say we've never had a

singles player since him who could

actually you could assume he had a

chance against a world number one of the

world number two

I'm with Raj beat the world number one

beat the world number two but then he

would go and loosen the quarterfinals or

the semi-finals of the world number 30

that was the problem

he didn't often get to the the victories

that otherwise he had the talent to get

but he was a terrific terrific player

and he was my other sporting icon and

then when it comes to political

leadership my icon was and remains

India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru

we're celebrating his one hundred and

twenty-fifth anniversary birth

anniversary on the 14th of November just

a few days away and the thing about Neru

it's not that I agreed with everything

he stood for I've written a book called

narrow the invention of India which I

have analyzed his legacy and his what

he's meant to India and I've argued that

there are some things he did that were

great and some things he did that were

not so great but the most important

thing in my view that Niro did for India

was to keep us Democratic we often

forget today because we now take our

democracy for granted were used to

seeing government's changing with

elections whether in Delhi or in the

States but what Nehru ji did was to

ensure that at a time when many other

newly independent countries which had

been colonies often very into

dictatorship because the leader said

that that was the only way they could

keep their country together and to

direct development in the country Nehru

was such a convinced Democrat that he

insisted on respecting all the

Democratic convention so for example

Nehru would at one point before

independence he offered an anonymous

attack on himself saying we shouldn't

let never get too many ambitious ideas

we want no Caesars and later Nehru when

he became Prime Minister made sure that

he paid respect to the President the

Vice President the judiciary the

opposition the opposition was very small

in those days but he would go he would

sit in Parliament he would listen to

their criticisms and attacks he would

respond he felt that by showing respect

for the institutions of democracy that

he would encourage Indians to believe in

the institutions and not just in

individuals for example when he once lost

lost

temper and made an unkind remark about a

judge at a press conference he wrote an

abject letter of apology to that Judge

and then he wrote another letter to the

Chief Justice of India apologizing for

having insulted the judiciary now this

is a prime minister of India the most

powerful man in the country nobody to

challenge him but why did he do that

again to make the point D we must

respect the institution of the judiciary

and this is how to my mind we should all

be youngish a talks about icons and

idols you can have people that you

respect but please remember that

ultimately it is not the individual but

you may like a movie star respect his

acting abilities realizing you know

nothing about his personal life the

institution the function the role when

we learn to respect those things we

become true Democrats ourselves and

that's one of the things that never

taught us good morning sir my name is

Karen missing and I am from the DPS Raja

what's your first name again currently

gurveer current me current vir okay good

my question to you is what give the

inspiration to combine Indian culture

and politics in the great Indian novel okay

the great Indian novel is a book art

published in 1989

so in fact penguin India has just

brought out the Silver Jubilee edition

the 25th anniversary edition of this

book which means that people are still

reading it and I'm delighted that a new

generation of readers is appreciating

what I've tried to do what I've done

with the great Indian novel is to take

this ancient epic and retell it as a

satirical story of 20th century India

from the British days to independence

and after now you ask me what led me to

do that

well the Mahabharata itself which is why

the title of the book is the great

Indian novel it's not an estimates my

estimate of the contents of the book

great is Maha and bharata is india so

the great indian novel is a direct

allusion to the mahabharatham but beyond

that what have I tried to do the

Mahabharata was an epic that was told

and retold for centuries in India from

roughly 400 BC to 400 AD for 800 years

the Mahabharata and the tales of the

Mahabharata were the tales that were

told in all parts of the country and

were told so repeatedly that they became

the National Library of India that is

that every story somebody wanted to tell

was incorporated into a retelling of the

Martha and that's why there are so many

interpolations digressions unconnected

stories to the central story because

they've all been added at different

times of 800 years including the Paquita

itself was added and inserted into a

retelling of the Mahabharata so I asked

myself why did we stop retelling them

Arthur why is it that after 400 AD there

are no new versions of it and so I said

what would a 20th century Veda Vyasa

say about his time the great events of

his time if he were telling or retelling

the maha-rathah today and that was what

I tried to do I did it in a satirical

vein and if you want to know more and if

your parents will let you come I'll be

talking about the great Indian novel in

much more detail at 8:30 tonight thank

you can be good morning sir I'm Annie I

am doing my finally a degree from

scrimmage it's yeah I'm doing my finally

a degree from City College is national

asthma and it's a great honor and a

wonderful privilege that you're here

with us sir thank you what I want to ask

is so we back in your 13s in 1415 in

your TD teenage did you actually dream

to become a d-- politician or great or

great well-known writer or something

that it's a question about whether when

i was in my teens i dreamt about

becoming a politician or a write the

honest truth is no i mean i write

writing yes i suppose i I knew I enjoyed

writing I knew I was reasonably good at

it because what I was writing was being

published but being a writer was

something my parents never encouraged

because as good middle-class

professionals they said nobody makes a

living from writing and in those days

there was no Indian full-time writer

except one RK Narayan

who wrote full-time and even printed and

published his own books otherwise

everybody else wrote on the side while

earning their real living from another

job so my parents said you're good at

school you're good at exams you better

do that focus on that and after you

finish your homework in your spare time

you can write and that's the way I

always thought of writing thanks to them

as for politics the answer is actually

emphatically no because in India again

the educated middle class of our country

has a contempt for politics that I find

rather regrettable that is as I was just

saying my parents would say study hard

do your exams well come first in class

go to the next level get into a good

college get a good job

and it's the fellows who can't do well

in their exams who will go into politics

because they can't get anything better

that was the attitude of most

middle-class families and the result was

that politics was left either to that

generation of families that had won the

nationalist movement and their

descendants all the big Maharaja's and

Nawabs who had if you like their own

areas where people would vote for them

whatever they said or did and then there

was this big gap between that elite and

the very poor ordinary what the Marxist

would call the limpin proletariat

who got into politics because they had

nothing to lose and there was nothing

else they could do that was the attitude

of the middle class so it would have

been very odd for me as a teenage son of

middle-class parents to aspire to

becoming a politician we were brought up

to look down on politics and politicians

and I want to tell you I think that's a

very big mistake because in a democracy

it is always democratic politics that

affects our lives far more than anything

else it is politics that makes the

decisions that change the nature of the

country in which we live and that

determine the future possibilities for

all of us what kind of career options

are available what kind of prices we pay

at the market whether we can travel

abroad freely or not all sorts of things

are determined by the process of

politics so abdicating politics in my

view was always a big mistake of the

middle class

I realize that mistake a bit late in

life but here you are and there now and

good morning sir my name is Abel and I

hope Abel yeah I'm from our own English

High School Raja OS branch and the

question I have for you today is during

your during your time as an advisor in

the UN for Kofi Annan sir what was your

thought about Indians really India's

relationship with other countries like

Pakistan because of the recent conflicts

and the problems happening

well I always had my personal views but

working at the United Nations as a

matter of principle I was not involved

in advising Kofi Annan on matters that

had to deal immediately with India's

interest so when the india-pakistan

issue came up if I said anything to him

privately which I did it was private

officially in the UN it would not have

been considered appropriate for an

Indian or a pakistani to be dealing with

India or Pakistan

with the UN secretary-general and that

became a matter of some sensitivity

because Kofi Annan had a very senior

Pakistani as a chef the cabinet and me

as senior Indian as is as a sort of

right hand or one of his right fingers

anyway and that became therefore an

issue where we were looked at with

suspicion by the other countries

nationals and we shouldn't have been

because certainly for me I was a

lifelong international civil servant I

joined the United Nations at 22 and one

of the things I liked about the United

Nations was the fact that you will sit

around the table with people of a dozen

different countries and you'll forget

which countries they're from because

your own nationality is completely

subordinate to your role in the

organization so you won't say here's a

meeting with the Tunisian a Ghanaian a

French woman and American and Indian

whatever you think oh that's that smart

guy from that peacekeeping operation and

there's that brilliant techie and that

woman is such a fabulous speaker I mean

those are the qualities that came to the

fore and all of us worked for a common

cause that basically had

to do with our country's that to my mind

was a big issue so when I was working

with Kofi Annan

I did not say or do very much about

India's direct relationships with key

countries but as you may know after I

came back to India I was freed of that

restraint I was indeed in the foreign

ministry for a while and I published a

book packs indica India and the world of

the 21st century which is a book about

indeed all of India's relationships if

you're interested in more detail go and

grab pax indica very good morning to you

too sir

my name is Joao Prasad and I'm coming

from the Gulf Asian English school Raja

so yes so we all know that time is of

the essence and despite being the most

sought-after politician on Twitter and

then managing politics side by side

where do you find time to write such

bestsellers thank you well I haven't

been writing as much as I would like

because there's so many distractions

not so much Twitter Twitter doesn't take

up much time I can often tweet in the

car between appointments or whatever but

it's much more the world life of an

elected politician in the Lok Sabha in

Indian democracy politicians have to put

up with a lot of demands from the voters

your life your time is not your own

because the voters are the ones who

decide what to do with your time and

they will come with their demands and if

you are not instantly available and

responsive and willing to help them then

you can forget about getting reelected

so it's that much more than Twitter or

social media that is interfered with my

ability to write as much as I would like

to let me stress that as far as my own

joy in writing is concerned

I've always been conscious it comes at

the expense of other things you can't

have it all and by the way that's

something all of you young people should

know you can't have it all

you have to make choose a choices in life

life

to live kofi annan would often say is to

choose so you can choose to go off and

watch a movie or play with your friends

or just have a fun time or you can

choose to actually sit down alone for a

couple of hours or three hours and just

write something if that's what you

choose to do that's a choice that you

can make but ultimately it's a choice

you must make if you believe enough in

all you see all of these things maybe we

good guys can we settle down a little

bit too much distraction thank you good

morning sir my name Alban Abraham Aston

in grade 11 I am from internationally

Niska Larchmont so from strong

supporters here so from you and

secretary representative to a MP in the

district of Trivandrum Kerala

so as internationalist to a state-level

politician so you have your face and

many of hurdles to become what you're

currently now so my question to you is

that why do when we think of current

politicians they are likely get from

national to international like more and

more what made you think differently

become international to a state level

that's an interesting question has never

been quite asked in the same way well on

the international side all I can say is

that I went abroad as a young man to

study I was always interested in world

affairs I was very much interested

obviously in India's place in the world

but also in the overall direction of the

way the world was going and I was I

would say very fortunate very privileged

to have an opportunity to work at the

United Nations at a very interesting

time that began with all the great

humanitarian crises of the 1970s from

the Vietnamese boat people crisis that I

was personally involved in handling

right up to refugee crises in every part

of the world and then to be involved in

peacekeeping at the end of the Cold War

which was an extraordinarily exciting

and at the same time challenging

experience and having done all of that I

had the great opportunity of running for

the top post in the organization I came

a close second but as Groucho Marx would

say no cigar the the second was the end

of that and thereafter I felt I should

not remain now I could have stayed

international not to the UN per se but

writing speaking lecturing I used to

command a pretty decent lecturing free

from organizations and companies around

the world but that would not have satis

fight me enough because I had never been

motivated by making a living or having

having money in the bank for me what

motivated me was having meaning in my

life was was doing something meaningful

every day and so the opportunity to do

something meaningful in my own country

with my own people was to my mind a far

greater satisfaction even if it meant

some financial sacrifice or some loss of

comforts there is no question in my mind

that morally and and in terms of my own

sense of my place on this on this earth

my purpose for being on this planet that

I'm far more useful and far more

satisfied in this form of public life

I'm not saying I'm entirely happy I've

had a lot of challenges a lot of

problems a lot of difficulties and I

haven't generated a lot of resentment

amongst people who say that I have come

into this world that is theirs and I've

encroached on their space and that has

been a problem but nonetheless each day

is a challenge but it's my challenge the

challenge in my country and that's what

good morning sir my name is Danny

Rajkumar I study in grade 11 in the

Emirates National School Sharjah sir in

your book India from a cheering section

from the Emirates got to school charger

sir in your book India from midnight to

the Millenium and beyond you have put

forth an argument about the importance

of India to the industrialized world but

we find nowadays that the modern

generation of India especially the

youths are more likely to work abroad

rather than in India where they provided

the finest education doesn't this affect

the development of India directly in the

long run

isn't this brain drain there Indians you

feel prefer to work abroad rather than

working India is that is that what

you're saying I'm not so sure you're

right anymore that used to be true for

my generation I have a friend sitting

right here who also went and worked

abroad who was in college with me so we

have people from my generation all over

the globe and one of the reasons for

that was that opportunities in India

were few and far between what honestly

happened was that the number of choices

you had for a profession after you left

school or college was much much less

then than it is now but today I would

not agree with you that the majority of

Indians want to work abroad the

impression I get is that the majority of

those even go to study abroad come back

which was not true in the 60s and 70s

where a majority went to study and

remained abroad today many of them come

back and there are two reasons for that

the first is of course there is a

recession in the Western world and so

the job opportunities in the Western

world are less anyway but second and

perhaps more important is the fact that

India is not the old India there are

tremendous opportunities tremendous ways

in which you can find fulfilling modern

professional experiences in India and

that's why I think that people are

coming back I don't worry too much about

the brain drain because even those who

went whose brains were drained out of India

India

they have continued to support India

invest in India start businesses in

India be political supporters for Indian

causes and their new residences so I

think either way India has gained

whether they've come back or not come

back India has been the gainer thank you

good morning sir

I'm grace yoga from Union model school

ChaCha and my question to US India and

Indians finally we have a girl good

India and Indians in all its forms and

shapes are almost the characters in your

books yes and you are a major portion of

your life you have stayed abroad so how

then could you relate India in such a

passionate way and now how do you feel

being a tree in the woods well I would

argue that a writer doesn't actually

have to be in a particular place to

write a writer really inhabits his head

and the page or the computer screen of

you writes on a computer and ultimately

geography is merely an address a writer

has to think about things that matter to

him because ultimately when you are

sitting alone with that pen and that

paper or that keyboard and their screen

it's only you your words and the medium

it doesn't matter when you shut yourself

off whether the place from which you

shut yourself off is in India or in

Dubai or in America and you're sitting

and writing about Sri Lanka and that's

if you know enough about it care enough

about it and write with feeling about it

where your writing is largely secondary

so you can have novelists for example

writing about things they know and care

about but in a setting like a university

campus or a Writers Workshop that may be

far removed from the actual place

they're writing about they understand

the truth about their writing and then

geography is just a convenience so I

guess I'm passionate about India I gave

an interview many years ago 30 years ago

in which I said

India matters to me and I would like to

matter to India I hope I've tried to put

my feets where my words were thank you I

don't think the sound is on young lady

good morning my name is Prateek Shah and

I'm from Delhi private school Dubai and

my question to you today comes from the

sphere of politics as you're a

politician alongside with being a writer

my question to you is do you think

dynastic succession still has a place in

Indian politics and where you see

dynastic succession in the future well

it's a very important question and one

that is very often misunderstood this

question of dynastic succession that is

should a politician's son or daughter

inherit the political mantle of the

father or mother and I think we all know

that in India this is a widespread

practice in my own party we have

produced several generations of

leadership from one family if you look

next door and you pee the Samajwadi

Party has one Chief Minister being

replaced as Chief Minister by his son if

you look in Tamil Nadu the DMK party's

leader his successor is his younger son

if you look in almost any of the

regional parties the Orissa Biju Janata

Dal is led by the son of Biju Patnaik

the famous nationalist leader and so it

goes it is a widespread practice and

indeed it even goes down to the

individual level not just individual

just parties there is that an MP passes

away and the seat is given to the son or

daughter we've seen that with such in

pilots in Rajasthan we've seen it very

recently with Pankaj on Monday Gopinath

Munde his daughter and my Rashtra from

different parties but the culture

appears to be the same why does this

happen well one answer is because our

culture is very much like that we

all know that the sons and daughters of

Bollywood stars become bollywood stars

we know the sons and doctors of sons and

daughters of doctors or dentists become

doctors and dentists inherit the

practice we know the sons of businessman

take over their father's businesses why

should we expect any profession to be

any different if you have a chance to

take over the family business you will

do it that seems to be built into the

culture the second factor which is

unique to politics is that politics

requires two things name recognition and

the support base both of which are

inheritable I can't say that because I

am a very good IT professional that my

daughter should be an IT professional

she may just not have the talent for it

but a politician can say my daughter

bears my name and she also has the same

support whether it's caste based support

geographical support whatever that I had

therefore my daughter should inherit my

seat and in politics it works because

the ultimate yardstick in democratic

politics is the voter and the votes

so if these factors make somebody more

electable than somebody else the more

electable person is always going to get

the chance and the real truth is that in

Indian politics very often the voter has

chosen a dynast

rather than a fresh face or a different

face and ultimately the best sanction in

a democracy against dynastic succession

is a voter start rejecting people on the

superficial grounds of name or caste or

lineage and instead voted for people on

the basis of their work their personal

quality and the performance we are not

yet there but maybe one day by the time

your daughter comes along to address an

event like this she won't be asking the

same question Thanks

good morning sir I'm Rachna Melara from

our own English High School Dubai and I

speak to you as someone who has lived

for 15 out of 16 years

outside of India works true and my

question to you is as in our eyes

what is our role in the making and

breaking of Indian institutions

wonderful ok all of you of course are

NRIs and that's now you all know what

right non-resident Indian but in my book

India from midnight to the Millenium I

suggested that NRI could actually stand

for two very different things one is

never relinquished India people have

never given up the idea of India even

while they are physically left India and

the other one for NRI I said is not

really Indian why not really Indian

because you've grown up in a different

culture with different surroundings

different assumptions different values

even different habits whether it comes

to habits of sanitation and hygiene I

bet you don't litter on the streets here

but when you go back to India you don't

think twice about throwing your litter

out of the car window whether it's the

languages you speak in here the TV shows

you watch everything is different when

you're in RI so I've said is it never

relinquished India or is it not really

Indian or is it both but I went beyond

that eventually and I've written about

this at some length I'll give you a

short answer the short answer is the

national the non-resident Indians have

become so indispensable to India's own

success that now I say that NRI should

be the national reserve of India because

they have become a resource for the

country you are all a resource for the

country in what ways are you a resource

because of course your parents are

sending money home

that's strengthening a foreign exchange

position that's helping your relatives

that's also enabling our economy to grow

and increase the purchasing power of the

recipients even during the recession the

quantity of Indian remittances kept

going up that was a wonderful

development secondly because of the

support you give in every country you

often support policy objectives that are

sympathetic to India in America for

example the N our eyes have become a

very important voice

for pro-indian policies and because they

themselves have an influential vote and

are influential donors to politicians

the politicians can't ignore these NR

eyes and the third thing about NRI is it

seems to me is that they do invest back

home they invest financially many of

them work money will buy companies buy

land they invest back in India it's not

that they feel that India is the last

place they want to invest in it's always

the first place they want to invest in

but they also invest emotionally the

inverse invests their compassion their

caring when you go to these privacy

party of diverse events every year it's

amazing the number of people you see who

have come from all over the world just

anxious to feel that sense of belonging

that sense of identification with their

motherland so for all of these reasons I

believe in our eyes are the National

Reserve or the natural resource of India

you ask how they can make an effect

these are the ways in which they are

already making an effect but you asked

about our democratic institutions there

they can only make an effect by going

back and living because when you are

outside you don't forfeit your rights as

an Indian passport holder you have all

your rights but you kind of lose out to

those who are back home fighting the

good fight at home because when you're

outside you're outside you're looking

outside the window looking in you're not

inside when you're inside however then

through your vote through your

participation you can make a big impact

and many in our eyes have gone back to

India after many years abroad have

raised the standards of public discourse

in our country in many ways because they

brought their own expectations and their

own standards to bear on how India

should be expected to function just as

bollywood film makers are making movies

more and more tailored to NRI audiences

our politics too is becoming much more

responsive to the views of n our eyes

good morning sir my name is Sahara and

I'm from Allah means I'm at school

what's your name again Sarah Sarah and

my name is my name is Sahara and I'm

Sora and I'm from al-amin private school

and my question to you today is being a

writer and a politician which one are

you are you proud to be considered as

haha there's no doubt about that one

because a politician to my mind is not a

part of my being it is what I do

whereas writing is a part of my being

I'm already an ex-minister one day I'll

be an X MP or an X politician but I hope

I will never be an X right a former

writer that writing is part of who I am

as George Bernard Shaw said I write for

the same reason a cow gives milk it's

inside me it's got to come out

politics is a passion it's given me

interesting experiences good and bad but

if tomorrow I stopped being a politician

I don't stop being me that's the big difference

difference

thank you Sarah good morning sir a mafia

and I'm representing Victoria College gotcha

gotcha

sir I would like to know how has the ink

stirs we can get into politics and

change the entire story of India that's

a very good question because I think

young youth is the right time to get

into politics to my mind one of my

mistakes was I left it so late I came

into politics when everybody around me

have been doing it since their student

days your challenge is that you're here

and not there so as a young person here

you have to follow the rules and laws of

this country and you can't suddenly

become an Indian political activist

while sitting in Sharjah but once you do

go back home to India yes you can make a

difference you can make a contribution

and one of the ways in which you are

able to do that is by engaging with the

political process wherever you are if

you're living in a village get involved

with the grassroots work the problems of

the villagers see how you can use your

education you can help them by being an interface

interface

between them their problems and the

realities of the government because you

have the language you have the education

if somebody has a problem means an

administrative help you can read the

forms you can write you can take them to

see the government official and so on

you can be very active just by being an

educated young person second because as

a young person you have fewer

responsibilities you are able to risk

your time your energy your sleep in

devoting yourself to political causes

and that will be something really

worthwhile and third it's when you're

young that you make the experiments and

determine what you'll do when you're

older if you discover when you're young

that you don't have a taste for politics

you can leave it behind with no regrets

but if you leave the political life for

nature and then you discover it's too

late to get in or that you can't really

have the same kind of success you could

have had in your twenties then you have

only yourself to blame so my advice is

try politics young go and see how you

can make a difference to people's lives

if you have a political party or

political leaders you like join them and

support them and see how you can get

involved in improving life my

grandfather has been an MLA

sorry Oh mics off [Applause]

[Applause]

I'll repeat it your grandfather's been

my grandfather has been an Emily has

been an Emily yeah so you have a

political constituency look from

Hyderabad India so I have already

political I love to be in politics I

want to help the people wonderful and

like my main concern is with the poor

people I want to help them educate

educated and I want to make my India of

totally true India which it was before I

reach India with everything good for you

I love that ambition we all admire you

for wanting that so go back and work for

it but get a good education first so

that you can contribute what you know

and what you've learned to those who are

less fortunate thank you so much sir

thank you good morning sir I'm Nidhi and

I'm pursuing my BBN Chrome well my

question to you is it's about one of

your quotes there is nothing as the

wrong place or the wrong time we are

we're at the only time we have perhaps

it's where we are meant to be so sir do

you think this quote has a strong impact

in your life as a politician as well as

an author uh-huh that's a good good

question this is a line from a novel not

a work of nonfiction it's a novel called

riot and a character says exactly this

that no such place as the no such thing

is a right wrong time of the wrong place

we are where we are at the only time we

have perhaps where it's where we're

meant to be and I said perhaps because

even as the voice of that character I

don't want to eliminate the possibility

of free will I'm Indian enough or Hindu

enough to believe that destiny lays out

certain possibilities for you that often

two people may work equally hard and one

succeeds in a certain way and the other doesn't

doesn't

and often the difference is explained by

factors that cannot be rationally Allen

I analyzed there are opportunities that

destiny gives you but ultimate

I would insist destiny alone is not

enough you still have to make a choice

you can have the greatest horoscope or

the greatest fate line but if you go and

stand in front of a speeding train it

makes no difference to your destiny you

are finished there are some things when

you make the choice if you jump off a

30th floor of a building it doesn't

matter how good your your-your-your

opportunities were so there's always

perhaps where it's where we're meant to

be you could have been somewhere else

you chose to be here and that gives you

your anchored role in life I'm sorry I'm

Salman from GSS private school law salon

and my question to you as a like you've

been writing since your teenager and

even before what is this thing like even

today inspires you to write and how like

how do you or if you get like writer's

block how do you like go through it well

I haven't so far suffered from writer's

block but that's because I have so

little time to write that when I do get

a chance to write I write with a

ferocious determination and energy

I think Salman Rushdie once said why

should writers be allowed the luxury of

writer's block after all carpenters

don't have carpenters block and you know

engineers don't have engineers block and

plumbers Kanter plumbers block they have

to work all the time and writers should

be a profession they must work the same

way as well so that's the answer I

suppose I write because it matters to me

I gave you the George Bernard Shaw quote

it's like a cow giving milk and when I

write I write because I want to not

because I have to and that applies to

all of you I hope right because you want

to and you will write things that'll

mean something to you and to your

readers thank you last question okay the

young girl what's your name

I'm Maharaj's from Raj Cree

International School so my

question to us so you're an orator as

well as a writer so which one do you

think will have a greater impact in the society

society

oh that's very sweet of you and it's

it's a very difficult question to answer

historically the answer would have been

the writer because the oratory of any

famous person is only heard by the

audience around them and when the speech

is over and they've gone that's the end

of that whereas the writing will remain

on the bookshelves to be discovered by

future generations but now we have

YouTube so even a good speech can be

watched by later generations I delivered

a speech at the TED conference I

remember where the audience must have

been maybe 250 people maximum 300 maybe

today that speech that very same speech

in YouTube has been watched by two and a

half million people over these last four

or five years so yes I don't know but

because if people are going to lose the

habits of reading then maybe speaking

and being able to listen to speeches on

the net will become equally long-lasting

but I have a bias in favor of the

printed word because I think you don't

require an expensive computer and an

internet connection to watch it you can

pick up a book sit on a beach and read

it and be influenced by the ideas so my

answer would be the rising thank you all

very much thank you thanks kids I'm

sorry that it went on so long the many

of you had to leave but thank you for

coming and for your very very

stimulating and well thought out

we'd like to thank the Sharjah

government and the book fair authorities

for giving us a chance to host the

session and of course dr. Shashi Tharoor

for taking time out of his busy schedule

and talking to you guys and of course

all the teachers and students for being

such an amazing audience thank you

there's a book signing session now so

all those who one please line up here

thank you [Applause]

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