India Today: Voices

India Today
August 3, 1998

It opens me to ridicule. Instead of observing, I become the observed.
V P Singh, former prime minister, complaining that his artistic inspiration was hindered by the security cover.

Age has taken its toll on Mr Basu and he is a frustrated man today.
Tapan Sikdar, West Bengal BJP chief, reacting to Jyoti Basu's comment that the saffron party was pseudo-swadeshi.

I did not use the word in the Viagra sense.
Subramanian Swamy, Janata Party leader, after describing the Vajpayee Government as impotent in the Lok Sabha.

We are like a frozen iceberg, and there is a lot of ice below the surface.
Salman Khurshid, Uttar Pradesh Congress chief, saying that the state unit could still be revived, in The Sunday Observer.

We are used to the medieval style of construction.
Ram Jethmalani, urban affairs minister, saying that foreign technology was needed to build houses quickly, in Business Today.

There will always be more masala dosas sold than Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Shashi Tharoor, diplomat and writer, on the invasion of western culture in India, in The Week.

Will they be staging a match on April 14, 2123 to celebrate Tendulkar's birth?
Simon Wilde, on Tendulkar's batting in the match at Lord's in memory of Princess Diana and to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of W.G. Grace, in The Sunday Times.

I certainly know why women envy me -- because men find me sexy. Raveena Tandon, actress, in G