Palace intrigues and disdain of history

Recently I spent some time with a friend who happens to be governor of a state. I was always curious to know what a governor does, or does not do, and his invitation to deliver a lecture came in very handy. I stayed almost a week in his hideout, a palace really, and finished my book on which I had been working for years. The state governor's job in India is perhaps the cushiest of them all, and, as I told my friend, his invitation is a kind of five-star holiday, all expenses paid. You are telling me, he said, as if the job is a kind of punishment, but I never saw him do anything except preside over some meetings and entertain assorted guests of meals which sometimes went on for ever. Incidentally, he had put on quite a lot of weight since I had last seen him in a bookshop in Connaught Place, Delhi, haggli

This article was originally published on October 16, 2021.