I had to write: When Shashi Tharoor sought 'licence to write' during UN stint
United Nations in the 1970s, a young Shashi Tharoor reached out to the chief of personnel seeking a "licence to write" like the famous fictional spy James Bond's «licence to kill». Tharoor, known as a «wordsmith» among netizens and literati for his vocabulary that more often than not leaves people looking for a dictionary, started writing before he turned a teenager.
The Congress MP published his first story at the age of 10 in an Indian English magazine. One of his early novels about an Anglo-Indian fighter pilot in World War II was serialised in a newspaper before he turned 11.
Speaking at the launch of his latest book, "The Wonderland of Words", on Friday, Tharoor shared his love for the written word and how he managed to continue writing at the UN, which has a «strict code of conduct for its staff».
«I got into this habit of writing and then I was being published in all these Indian magazines and newspapers throughout my childhood. The bug never left me. I often quoted George Bernard Shaw's famous line, 'I write for the same reason a cow gives milk'. You know it's inside me, it's got to come out. So in that sense, I had to write,» he said.
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After joining the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva in 1978 as a staff member, he reached out to the chief of personnel seeking permission for «any external activities».
«So, I went to make a case to the chief of personnel that if
