New Delhi:
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor was subjected to an intense rapid fire round of questioning about his views on politics and issues that are highly relevant to the country today.
During an interaction at the NDTV World Summit, he described his party as "aspirational" when asked to explain what was its core quality.
"Aspiring for power and working for the aspirations of the other," the Congress leader who is also the chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs told NDTV.
Here are the excerpts from the rapid fire round:
NDTV: One word to describe parliament?
Tharoor: Dysfunctional. I have to say that. We are not doing everything that a parliament should be doing.
NDTV: One MP whose speeches you really look forward to.
Tharoor: There are many. I wish PM Modi would make more speeches than he does. At one point the statistics were that he had spoken in more foreign parliaments than he had in his own. I think there would be more to look forward to if he spoke more often. On my side of the fence I must say that I become extremely thrilled by the speeches of Priyanka Gandhi. She's a first-term parliamentarian but she speaks with tremendous fluency and effectiveness. I'd like to hear more of that.
NDTV: Your favorite Gen-Z slang.
Tharoor: I think we should be obliged to speak to some of them too and that's delulu. The government is delulu sometimes. I must say the young thrilled me with their resort to humour and satire during the protests. I had had humour beaten out of me in my very first year in politics. I realised that my kind of humour did not translate very well in a multilingual democracy. What the Gen-Z did with their various posters and memes and cartoons and jokes and even their slogans was so effective. I think it has one important lesson for all of us in politics, not to take ourselves too seriously. Humour can deflate the most arrogant, most pompous balloon that there is out there in politics. There are a lot of those balloons that need deflating.
NDTV: Would you prefer a good Onam Sadhya or fish curry with rice?
Tharoor: I am a vegetarian.
NDTV: Kerala or Keralam?
Tharoor: I always accepted Kerala in English and Keralam in Malayalam and I feel that we should have stuck to that, just as we speak of India in English and Bharat or Bharatam in other Indian languages. The fact is this is such a pointless exercise but now that it is legally, constitutionally and governmentally Keralam, I will say Keralam.
NDTV: One contemporary world leader who has made you rethink some of your ideas?
Tharoor: Kofi Annan, in many ways, and I worked very closely with him for many years. I learned a lot from him. I learned not to be swayed by either pleasure or pressure too much and I also learned the great importance of staying true to yourself. This is one leader who was totally anchored in himself and who knew what he believed, what he stood for. He is accountable to his own conscience and that means that's been very useful in Indian politics, where people are constantly misrepresenting you or trying to redefine you in their terms or, frankly, abusing you and reducing you. If you weren't anchored in yourself you would go nuts.
NDTV: What is that one thing that brings you the most joy outside politics and public life, either your writing or your speaking?
Tharoor: My family and now my grandfather, which is a great experience to have. Cricket, though nowadays all I can manage are highlights and not enough time to watch the whole thing. Reading and writing when I can.