Foreigners have a complex set of associations in their minds when they think of America – from Iraq to 9/11, certainly, but also from Coke to jeans. It is entirely possible for people around the world to love American products, American books, American movies, American music, and dislike the policies of the government of America. Shashi Tharoor Read Quote
Though the euphoria surrounding Barack Obama’s election last week as President-elect has not yet begun to subside, it is already time to recognise that the most important challenge facing the next U.S. president is to restore America’s standing in the eyes of the world. Shashi Tharoor Read Quote
Above all, Danny Boyle’s ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is the work of an artist at the peak of his powers. India is his palette, and Mumbai – that teeming ‘maximum city’, with 19 million strivers on the make, jostling, scheming, struggling and killing for success – is his brush. Shashi Tharoor Read Quote
The casting of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is a dream. Anil Kapoor, as the sleazy TV host, diamonds winking in his earlobes, has never been better; the quietly understated Irrfan Khan turns in another bravura performance as the police inspector whose questioning brings out Jamal’s story. Shashi Tharoor Read Quote
A witticism in an airport security line is like a Swiss tap – turn it on, and you instantly find yourself in hot water. Shashi Tharoor Read Quote
The closest Indian analogy to the position of black Americans is that of the Dalits – formerly called ‘Untouchables,’ the outcastes who for millennia suffered humiliating discrimination and oppression. Shashi Tharoor Read Quote
If China wants to build a new six-lane expressway, it can bulldoze its way past any number of villages in its path; in India, if you want to widen a two-lane road, you could be tied up in court for a dozen years over compensation entitlements. Shashi Tharoor Read Quote
Whereas China has set about systematically striving for Olympic success since it re-entered global competition after years of isolation, India has remained complacent about its lack of sporting prowess. Shashi Tharoor Read Quote
Global challenges also require global solutions, and few indeed are the situations in which the United States or any other country can act completely alone. Shashi Tharoor Read Quote
Five decades ago, as India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, began visibly ailing, the nation and the world were consumed by the question: ‘After Nehru, who?’ The inexpressible fear lay in the subtext to the question: ‘After Nehru, what?’ Shashi Tharoor Read Quote
