Shashi Tharoor: A man in love with himself

Shashi Tharoor was still with the United Nations Organisation when he came to New Delhi around the time the Paul Volcker controversy was raging. He was staying at New Delhi’s beautiful colonial style Imperial Hotel when I along with a young colleague went to meet him.

Tharoor had been in Mumbai the previous day and our newspaper had run a picture of him in that day’s edition. After the usual pleasantries, my colleague fired the first question. “Do you pluck your eyebrows?”

I was taken aback. But Tharoor took it in his stride and laughed it off, joking, “Must I reveal my beauty secrets?”

He then wanted to know why DNA had carried a terrible picture of him, a dark and smudgy one. We promised that the photographer accompanying us would take a better one and print it prominently the next day.

That is Tharoor for you. Meticulous to a fault, hugely talented, bothered about his appearance, and wanting to put his best profile forward.

KC Singh, former secretary in the external affairs ministry, who had watched him from close quarters as he coordinated Tharoor's campaign as India’s candidate for UN secretary-general in 2006, remarked, “He is a narcissist, totally in love with himself and his image.”

But the latest scandal to hit Tharoor has dented his image. No one knows yet whether he will ride the storm, but he has landed himself in the kind of serious trouble that may end up ruining his political career. But he is not one to go down without a fight, and he took on former pal Lalit Modi.

At the UN, which is a formal, hierarchy-driven set-up, Tharoor had not kicked off so many controversies. But even there his personal life came in for some tongue-wagging, as he got into a relationship with Christa Giles, a Canadian citizen working at the UN, and later married her. When appointed head of the public affairs division in the UN headquarters in New York, he moved his girlfriend to the office next to him. But as a rule he has been above board.

Chandan Mitra, editor-in-chief of The Pioneer, was in St Stephen's College with Tharoor and ran his campaign for president of the college union. He was always well dressed, remembered Mitra, and had the gift of the gab. Mitra remarked on his confidence: “Shashi thinks he is the cleverest person in the world and can outwit anyone in any subject. This natural overconfidence has and will cause major problems for him.”

Tharoor’s quick rise in the Congress may have also fuelled his confidence and made him believe he could not be touched. A first-time MP, he was given a ministership and has survived quite a few minor hiccups. Many in the Congress believe he has got much more than is due and daggers are out for him.

Tharoor's open and transparent ways may be appreciated abroad, but as a politician in a conservative country, he broke the rules of ‘propriety’ by flaunting his friend Sunanda Pushkar even while he was going through a divorce from his second wife. His entrance at the wedding reception of Jitin Prasada with the resplendent Sunanda in tow created a flutter.

Tharoor could have pulled this off, too, but for the fact that Sunanda also got a sweetheart deal at the Kochi IPL team where Tharoor claims he has no other interest except promoting cricket in Kerala. Tharoor and his aides have tried to turn the entire controversy into a Congress-BJP issue by dragging in Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.

But as a minister in charge of the Gulf, Africa, and Latin America, Tharoor cannot be faulted. “He reads his briefs well, is articulate, connects the dots and lines easily, and is an asset to the country,” an official in the ministry said.