Profiles and Letters

This book highlights the intellectual and diplomatic distinction of K. Natwar Singh. From a very young age he came into intimate contact with world-renowned personalities. As he reveals: ‘While working on this book, the thought struck me that the Natwar Singh of these letters was obviously someone that had been transmuted out of the indubitably common metal that he is, into a superior product by the alchemy of the minds of indulgent and warm-hearted well-wishers." Indira Gandhi, R.K. Narayan, Han Suyin, E.M. Forster, Nargis Dutt et al figure in the list of these distinguished well-wishers. These Letters tell us as much about the writers as they reflect on the engaging personality of the recipient. Each celebrity seems to have influenced the author’s zeitgeist and weltanschuung in different ways. From these letters K. Natwar Singh emerges as a man of tremendous ability and integrity, who writes elegant prose while displaying his ability to laugh at himself.