Thaindian News

New Delhi, April 19 (IANS) One of India’s best known non-fiction authors, Shashi Tharoor, who Sunday quit as junior foreign affairs minister, should focus on his literary pursuits at this juncture, says the writers’ fraternity.
Interviews by IANS found the literati guarded but “solidly behind the former minister”.

The minister of state for external affairs quit the cabinet Sunday night over a controversy surrounding the Indian Premier League (IPL) Kochi franchise.

Writer Shashi Tharoor and the politician Shashi Tharoor are two unrelated personas, said chief editor of Harper Collins V.K. Karthika, when queried by IANS on the controversy that cost him his job.

“We read Shashi the writer, not Shashi the politician. They are two different people. The controversy is not going to have any impact on his literary career,” Karthika told IANS.

The 54-year-old former UN diplomat-turned politician shot to limelight with “The Great Indian Novel”, a contemporary re-interpretation of Mahabharata, in 1989 and has since written over a dozen books.

He is also a renowned columnist known for his opinion articles that he contributes to publications across the globe.

His bibliography includes “The Elephant, The Tiger, And the Cell Phone: Reflections on India - the Emerging 21st Century Power”, “India: From Midnight To the Millennium”, “Riot”, “Nehru: A Biography”, “Show Business”, “Bookless in Baghdad: Reflections on Writing and Writers”, “Kerala: God’s Own Country”, “Reasons of State” (which was his doctoral thesis), “Shadows Across the Playing Field: 60 Years of India Pakistan Cricket” and “The Five Dollar Smile: And Other Stories”.

“He is a fantastic writer. I think it would be entirely wrong to club the writer and the politician together. The IPL controversy will not have any bearing on his stature and credibility as a writer. He should pursue writing in full earnest,” Advaita Kala, author of the best-selling ‘chick lit’ novel, “Almost Single”, told IANS.

Literary debutant Mathew Vincent Menacherry, whose book “Arrack In The Afternoon”, was launched this month, felt that “it was time the former minister distanced himself from politics and concentrated on writing”.

“I am huge Shashi Tharoor fan. But I would like to say that as a politician he was not conducting himself very well, probably because he was still new to politics. He should focus on writing,” the young Malayali novelist said.

Sources at Penguin-Books India declined comment, saying “his political career was divorced from literary pursuits”.

“The IPL row does not concern his writing,” a senior Penguin editor told IANS.

Long-time associate Gurcharan Das, the author of the book “Difficulty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of Dharma”, refused to comment on the political drama.

“I do not really want to talk about it. He is a close friend. The controversy is not relevant to his standing as a writer,” he told IANS.

Winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize 2010 Rana Dasgupta, who was awarded the prize by Shashi Tharoor at the glittering ceremony in the capital recently, said he “did not want to speak on the issue”.

“I have already made it clear that I don’t want to comment on it,” Dasgupta told IANS.

Tharoor, a child prodigy, started writing at the age of six. His first published story appeared in the Bharat Jyoti, the Sunday edition of the Free Press Journal.