DIPLOMACY WITH A SENSE OF HUMOUR

MANI SHANKAR DID COME FROM A GIFTED FAMILY, BUT IT WAS GIFTED ONLY IN INTELLECT. FOR THE REST, HE HAD TO FIGHT EVERY INCH OF THE WAY

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MEMOIRS OF A MAVERICK
The First Fifty Years (1941-1991)
By Mani Shankar Aiyar
JUGGERNAUT
₹899; 379 pages

Mani Shankar Aiyar's Memoirs of a Maverick is the first of three books on his life that are slated to be published by Juggernaut in the coming months. Anyone who takes a hasty look at his bio-data-born in a well-to-do Brahmin family; educated at the Doon School, St Stephen's College and Trinity Hall, Cambridge; inducted straight from university into the Indian Foreign Service, and from there into the Congress party-would conclude unhesitatingly that he has lived a privileged life.