THE ESSENCE OF BEING SHASHI TAROOR

A small article that appeared in the Sunday supplement on The Hindu today prompted me to write this post. The article was about our MP Shashi Taroor and the eternal controversy that he tweeted some years back on the ‘cattle class’. The cattle class tweet came to be the call of nemesis for him as a politician, in spite of the justifications that he has ever been delivering through print, media, articles, interviews and lectures. He does not seem to have resolved the issue with the masses and the co-politicians yet.

Excellent Career diplomat, brilliant writer, elegant practitioner of speech, Sashi Taroor was the toast of the country before he decided to return to India and enter Indian Politics. Someone who could gain his doctorate at the age of 22, Sashi Taroor ran two parallel careers; as that of a reputed writer and a UN Diplomat. His accomplishments in solving the ‘Boat People’ crises had catapulted him into international fame, so did his books, most of which had India as the topic. He was married to Tilottama, herself a writer of repute and they have twin sons, both of whom are adults now and dwell in the field of international journalism. He grew well into the position of ‘Under Secretary General’; a post that a career diplomat could grow highest in UN. Nursing ambitions of becoming the Secretary General of United Nations, when the conventional turn of Asia came to occupy it, he stood as a candidate but lost to Ban Ki Moon from South Korea who was supported by USA and the West. Before this time, his marriage with Tilottama had come to a close and he was dating a career diplomat from Canada, a junior of him in the UN.

It is at this time that he had increased his travel frequency to India and Kerala, via Dubai where he was setting up some sort of a business. I remember a reception that was given to him by the Rotary clubs of Cochin during this period. At that time, though he had lost the UN elections, he was still continuing as the Under Secretary General in the UN. In those days, he used to contribute his views in The Hindu Sunday supplement and in one of which he had reiterated that though he could continue, he would leave UN job, in case he loses the election. Having lost and still continuing in the job, during the question hour, referring to the article, I asked him as to what is he still doing in UN. His body language showed that he didn’t like the question and he went on answering the technicalities of leaving UN and assured that he would let his fans like me know about it in the due course.

It was obvious then that he had been cultivating the Indian polity, particularly the Congress party which had the Madam and the Singh at apex, to both he was well connected to. Upon advice, he made Trivandrum his center of activity in order to gain a seat for him to be the Member of Parliament. I am from Trivandrum and I know the psyche of the people there. Earlier too, they had welcomed outside people like Krishna Menon to win seat to Parliament and the list includes Kannur based Pannyan Ravindran, the CPI stalwart. Though the local leaders like Sivaprasad, MM Hassan etc. did not like this but the Congress ‘high command’ persisted to run Sashi Taroor there and he won comfortably; and as expected, became the Minister of State for External Affairs.

It is said that he was an efficient Minister. However certain very ‘personal’ matters, he seems to have over-indulged. One of which was the Kerala IPL team. His love for the game was always pronounced but to form the Kerala IPL team, he had other intentions. This came in the form a beauty called Sunanda Pushkar, who was having a successful marketing career in the UAE. He had totally fallen to her charm (the Canadian beauty that he was dating or living with had retreated by then) and wanted to possess her anyhow and rests of the fracas are well written in the Press and Media. He gained her hand but lost his minster-ship, got to be known as the tainted one on matters IPL and lost the respect of his party men and most of his country fans. Today, one is not sure whether he would get another chance to stand from Trivandum for the Loksabha. It has to be seen. Since the heavy jobs of the ministry is gone, he gets ample time to attend Loksabha, do his travels, engage in writing and attending to invitations for whole lot literary and cultural events with his sweetheart in tow.

Looking at his present position, one could clearly say that his ambitions had taken a beating. But for L’affair ‘Pushkar’, he still would have doing a recognizable job of a Minister and that would have elevated him into Cabinet position in Union Ministry, which again would have helped him to achieve his lifelong ambition of heading the UN at a possible second chance. But for the affair, he wouldn’t have anything to do with IPL and that would have kept him off the politics with shrewd guys like Sharad Pawar, Lalit Modi etc. I think he had already swallowed the humble pie and must have let go of his ambition. However, please note that this is India and here anything is possible, particularly in politics….

Without commenting on the attitude of Indians and Keralites to Sashi Taroor, this post would be truly incomplete. We have a habit of idolizing those of our ilk who are outside the country and thus Sashi Taroor (the Indian in the UN!) eminently qualified to receive the same in plenty. He is a creative genius with an excellent academic record behind him. Like all geniuses, he has his idiosyncrasies which were working along with his big ego. Frankly, after seeing the world in his position, it is not expected of him to respect the home geniuses like us. Like all those phenomenal personalities that we know, he too just could not see the view of the ordinary denizens when he was parleying with the Pushkar in the IPL. He still does not see anything wrong in what he had done and goes around justifying his stand, even now. (In this connection, I really marvel the self-pity of the old Congress Home Minister Bhuta Singh, during his time The Ram Janam Bhumi was vandalized by RSS & Shiv Sena. Having lost the election after the same, he quipped that the lord –Ram- and the log -people- saw him out). When these personalities are out of the country, the citizens think great of them but once they are back, we come to realize that these people also are human being with thoughts, feelings and aspirations. People like Sashi Taroor, with his high self-esteem always looked down at (most of) the Indians & Malayalis but kept very ambitious aspirations and still do not nurse regret about calling the cattle class.

The question is; cattle class that we are, do we deserve holy cows?