The two 'uncles'

Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Ronald Wilson Reagan led their nations against all odds

When they started their political journeys, they were rank outsiders. The odds of their becoming leaders of their national governments were astronomical. Yet that is what they became. And they were among the most popular ones in modern times at that. The tenth prime minister of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and the fortieth president of the United States of America, Ronald Wilson Reagan, were two of a kind. They both lived to the ripe old age of 93 and spent their last years lost to the world, in the labyrinths of their own consciousness, their sonorous voices forever muted.

Vajpayee entered