Words To Live By...

I had the profound privilege and pleasure of sitting in on a talk given by Dr. Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for External Affairs of India, the day before yesterday (or, as he put it, a bilateral meeting of minds) and found myself utterly fascinated by how he took the everyday, ordinary, even mundane facts around us and made everyone say "Oh...yeah...didn't see it that way. Huh. Wow."

Case in point being when a member of the audience asked him how he felt about being a "misfit in the Indian political scene" and whether that made him a "target of the press' taunts and his seniors' ridicule" his response was affable and disingenuous: "I find myself objecting not to the tone of the question, but to the single word 'misfit', which implies that there is only ever one fit for everything." It's never just about square pegs and round holes, but learning to accommodate, to pare rough edges, to widen smaller niches. I love that this is something EVERYONE knows, but it takes this man to say it for people in the audience to sit up, look around at their neighbours and say "Hmmm. Yes."

His following words were even better. "As for inviting taunts or ridicule, well, something new always does, doesn't it? There will always be minds that are sluggish to accept change. And as I often ask the veteran reporters who bombard me with these questions: 'Well, how would you feel if some new reporter came in and took the job you felt you deserved, along with all the accolades and attention?'"

Is it weird to have a fan-girl crush on a politician?