finds on meeting him. Does one take seriously what you imply about the stories being taken from real life?
Many instances are real but they didn't necessarily occur in the manner in which they were put together, and also not in the lives of the specific characters.
To put it all together in such a way as to re-create an entire way of life, with a depth of meaning for the characters in that situation, you have to dissimulate quite a lot, re-arrange your facts. They are facts, but not to be read in any literal sense.
Your book makes the world of diplomacy seem full of oddball characters and outmoded practices. It must be fun.
When I was posted in Ireland, we got a note from an embassy which said that their customs did not permit them to shake hands with ladies, so we should ask our women not to shake hands with them. As it happened, it was the national day of that country about a week later.
My wife and I went there and we were shaking hands with the ambassador... my wife, naturally, doing namaste. After me was an Irish lady in her 60s, with a reputation for being full of fun.
As this gentleman passed, I saw this lady hold the young man by the arms, give him a kiss on his right cheek and then his left. She then turned to me, saying we're not allowed to shake hands with them, you know! There are thousands of incidents like this I was witness to and had a good laugh over.
Why verse?
I began to write the first story in normal prose and then I came upon Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. I hadn't read Chaucer since school. The stories were interesting but I felt that they wouldn't have been half as interesting if it hadn't been for the verse.
Rhyming in English is extremely difficult, unlike in Hindi or French. I tried out two-three paras in verse. In the beginning it was hard going, but then I started thinking in rhyme and in meter and lived like that for two years.
Some of the rhymes are quite audacious.
The one that I'm most proud of came like that. It's in the first story "" "And then we got a manna from heaven / Rajah fell to Prasanna for seven!"
