“I am quite like my books, pan-Indian. My parents are from Kerala, I studied in Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai and have friends across the country. That I think makes me enough of an authority to write about my country since I am not merely an expatriate Indian,” says Tharoor.

His latest work of non-fiction, The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cell Phone — India: The Emerging 21st Century, shared the spotlight equally with the author. The book comprises a collection of essays on the changing faces of India.

“Most people find the heading, which puts together elephants, tigers and phones, sort of weird. Well, the Panchatantra Tales has inspired the name. To me India was like a giant elephant earlier, slow and lumbering, which has now become a tiger, agile and swift. The cell phone I believe is the biggest revolution that modern India has witnessed. A few years ago, I had seen a picture of a sadhu at the Ganga Sagar gathering with a mobile phone in his hand. That to me is modern India,” says the author.

“It’s ironical that mobile phones in India are not viewed as luxury items. For many unlettered people it’s actually an easy way of keeping in touch with people instead of finding people to pen down their letters,” points out the author. Yet, while reaffirming India’s position as an emerging nation with interesting developments in technology and an increasing number of billionaires, he says that India has graver issues to grapple with still. To support his argument, he refers to farmer suicides, the highest in the world.

The audience, of course, was keen on knowing how India was being viewed in the West, especially in the UN, what with China making its impact felt in global politics. “The image of India in the West has changed considerably and predictably. From a land of snake charmers, it has evolved into a land of tech geeks. Unfortunately, history and arts graduates like me, feel at loss since we are expected to be techies,” he joked. On a serious note, however, he added that, Indian films are commanding respect overseas. “I had heard of a Senegalese lady who would take the bus to the capital Dakar once a month to watch Hindi films, never minding the fact that she didn’t understand the language or couldn’t read the French subtitles. To her, the few hours of song and dance were magic enough.”