It was 1999. Aishwarya Rai had stepped into the world of acting. Akshaye Khanna was very much in his prime. Kevin Spacey had just won his second Academy Award. As a young diplomat, Lakshmi Murdeshwar Puri was in Hungary, the year the country opened a new chapter to enter NATO. Hope was everywhere, as the world stepped into another millennium.
That was when Puri began writing a story that she had lived with—one that she had grown up listening to. But it took a lifetime to complete. “I started writing when I was ambassador in Budapest, from 1999 to 2002,” she says.
It is the dying days of December 2023 in Delhi. Puri is at her home, having taken a leap into fiction from the matter-of-fact world of diplomacy. “After about 43 years in what I call the pantomime of diplomacy, I really wanted to indulge in an act of creation,” she says.
Puri is at her desk, with an assortment of books in the background. All around her are gods— Guru Nanak on the desk, Shiva on the shelf and Krishna on the wall. “I wrote only 100 pages. After that, I got busy with work, and also had a block. I don’t know what happened. Over the years, I still kept reminding myself—that’s an unfinished project.”
It was only after 18 years—half of it in Geneva, and half in New York—that Puri resumed writing. Covid had the world on pause. “I worked 10 hours a day those days,” she smiles. “There was a kind of vacuum. That is what was needed. I think my external world was too busy.”
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة January 21, 2024 من THE WEEK India.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة January 21, 2024 من THE WEEK India.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
What Will It Take To Clean Up Delhi Air?
IT IS ASKED, year after year, why Delhi’s air remains unbreathable despite several interventions to reduce pollution.
Trump and the crisis of liberalism
Although Donald Trump's election to a non-consecutive second term to the US presidency is not unprecedented—Grover Cleveland had done it in 1893—it is nevertheless a watershed moment.
Men eye the woman's purse
A couple of months ago, I chanced upon a young 20-something man at my gym walking out with a women’s sling bag.
When trees hold hands
A filmmaker explores the human-nature connect through the living root bridges
Ms Gee & Gen Z
The vibrant Anuja Chauhan and her daughter Nayantara on the generational gap in romance writing
Vikram Seth-a suitable man
Our golden boy of literature was the star attraction at the recent Shillong Literary Festival in mysterious Meghalaya.
Superman bites the dust
When my granddaughter Kim was about three, I often took her to play in a nearby park.
OLD MAN AND THE SEA
Meet G. Govinda Menon, the 102-year-old engineer who had a key role in surveying the Vizhinjam coast in the 1940s, assessing its potential for an international port
Managing volatility: smarter equity choices in uncertain markets
THE INDIAN STOCK MARKET has delivered a strong 11 per cent CAGR over the past decade, with positive returns for eight straight years.
Investing in actively managed low-volatility portfolios keeps risks at bay
AFTER A ROARING bull market over the past year, equity markets in the recent months have gone into a correction mode as FIIs go on a selling spree. Volatility has risen and investment returns are hurt.
