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Journalism of Courage
It’s not every day you get invited into the home of someone like Dr Shashi Tharoor. Much like the man himself—writer, diplomat, orator, and Parliamentarian—his Delhi house balances the intellectual with the intimate, the worldly with the well-worn. At first glance, it is a reflection of a global citizen. But sit awhile, and it becomes unmistakably personal.
The first stop? His office—though it doesn’t feel like one. It’s a room that bears the intellectual clutter only a true bibliophile could curate. Piles of books—some read, many waiting—dot the room, embodying that eternal Tharoorian tussle: too many words, too little time.
“This is where I write, and where I receive visitors. And when I get drowned in the clutter that I don’t need to jump to conclusions,” Tharoor said, adding: “I also like to get more books than I seem to have time to read, which is why you’ve got these piles all over the place.”
As the tour continues, we also meet his mother in the living room, where art lines the walls. “We’ve got some fairly eclectic art,” Tharoor explains, pointing to a piece a friend recently painted for him. “That one was just painted for me. He’s actually autographed it on the back.”
A section of one wall is dedicated to the covers of his books—Indian editions, foreign ones too. “They’ve even tossed in a few of the foreign editions, but not all of them. It’s a selection of covers of my books.”
Next door, family photos rest in frames—old memories, young faces. Tharoor shows a picture of his son, smiling. “They both made me a grandfather,” he shares. “Twice over.” There’s even a photo of him with a moustache—just for fun, after a time of mourning. “This was just a very brief moment. I had actually lost my father, and so in our system we grow the beard, we don’t shave for 40 days. And when the beard was being taken off, the family said, just for a gig, ‘Let’s watch it, let’s see what you’d look like if you had a moustache.’ So when they took everything off, they didn’t take off the moustache—just for that picture.”
“It’s actually a fairly modest sarkari bungalow,” Tharoor says, but it’s clear that the home has been loved into being. “We’ve done it up as nicely as we could, and I give a lot of—this room is actually the way Sunanda made it—my late wife.”
There’s a baby photo on a shelf—his first grandchild. “But now there are two more,” Tharoor adds. “One’s just five months old, the other only a month.” His tone softens when he shows a photo of his father. “He’s my inspiration,” he says.
Tharoor revealed his breakfast, saying “that’s my genuine addiction”: “I have a big breakfast of idlis every single day.” Idlis are clearly his soft spot. “At least half a dozen,” he admits with a smile, “Yeah, sometimes it’ll cross over that limit.”
When asked what he prefers—Kerala food or Delhi food—Tharoor doesn’t pick sides. His meals are a mix: some South Indian, some North Indian, and a bit of whatever feels like home that day. “Eclectic,” he calls it—a word he’s happy to explain.
