SAJAforum: PROFILE: Catching up with Tunku Varadarajan, writer provocateur

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[NOTE: This post includes a Q&A and tips from a workshop on opinion writing.]

Over on the SAJA Discussion List (an old-fashioned, occasionally combative e-mail list you can sign up for here; more than 600 journalists and others in 30 countries dissecting American media and its coverage of South Asia and the diaspora, among other topics), messages come with an all-caps prefix in the subject line. These prefixes, like the one on SAJAforum's headlines, indicate the topic of the e-mail:

LANKA: Foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar assassinated
BANGLADESH: 30 years after Mujib
INDO-US AFFS: Scientific accord reached

In the 10+ years of the list, only a handful of people ever became a prefix. Folks whose work or impact was so unusual that they were widely discussed and who could be identified with just one name. Folks whose last name was enough to telegraph the topic: names like JINDAL and NOOYI. Then there was another, who could be easily IDed by just his first name: TUNKU. As in Tunku Varadarajan, a British citizen born in India and former Oxford law professor who turned to journalism at the age of 32. He first moved to the U.S. as New York bureau chief for The Times of London in 1997 (he had been the paper's Madrid bureau chief before coming to the U.S.).

His columns in India Today's North American edition - "Alternate Accent" - and, later in The Wall Street Journal - "Citizen of the World" (where he also served as chief television and media critic) - were critiqued on a regular basis. He had many critics and admirers and never failed to be provocative. Two responses show the kind of reaction he'd engender on a regular basis: "...you should consider excising much of what he says from the news and commentary you send out - not because it is controversial, but because it is poorly considered and largely inane" and "Tunku is my kind of guy! I would love to meet him sometime" (those two comments, by gents who have themselves been featured on SAJAforum, are among those I have saved over the years).

When he went on to become the WSJ's deputy editorial features editor of the op-ed page (and then got his boss' job), he slowed down his own writing and became curator of the page's outside contributions, publishing pieces that reflected - and sometime challenged - its famously conservative view of the world (he also taught for a semester as an adjunct at Columbia Journalism School with Dean Nicholas Lemann).

In January 2007, he made a rare move from the edit page to the news pages (most moves are in the other direction), becoming an assistant managing editor at the WSJ. Paul Steiger, the paper's editor and 2004 SAJA Journalism Leader Award winner, said in a note to the staff at the time: "Having the fresh eye of someone with Tunku’s record of success – most recently in broadening out and invigorating the edit page’s op-ed features – will help us keep ahead of the competition at a time when other publications, both new and old, are seeking to steal our approach."

Varadarajan stayed at the Journal for only a few months longer, as he left the paper and returned to teaching, becoming a full-time professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University in Oct. 2007. Here's what he wrote as he left:

To: Tunku Varadarajan
Sent: Sep 12, 2007 1:43 PM
Subject: From Tunku

Dear friends and colleagues:

This is just a brief note to say that I will be leaving the Journal effective October 1, intending to return to my "roots" in the academic world.

I've had a wonderful seven-year run on the best American newspaper, and wish to thank you--profusely-- for your kindness and collegiality, as well as your courtesy and company.

I hope we can stay in touch, professionally and bibulously.

Yrs ever,
Tunku Varadarajan

He insists that the 2007 purchase of WSJ by Rupert Murdoch (his former boss at The Times) was not the reason for his departure, even though he had earlier been critical of Murdoch's China dealings (see a 2001 WSJ essay, "Bowing Low to China" in a collection of his opinion pieces below).

He also became a research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, a conservative public policy think tank.

I get asked about his whereabouts on a regular basis and was waiting for his writing and editing career to flourish again so that I'd have an opportunity to write about him.

After spending a few months as a contributing editor at the Financial Times, Varadarajan has another gig that once again gives him an influential editorial voice: opinion editor of Forbes.com (see his responses to three SAJAforum questions about his new roles below).

From the press release:

"We couldn't be happier to welcome Tunku aboard," said Paul Maidment, Editor of Forbes.com. "His vast experience as both an op-ed writer and editor, wide-ranging, thoughtful mind and deep grounding in issues affecting business leaders in America and around the world will make our Opinions Channel an even more substantial platform for the
voice and spirited agenda-setting debate that our readers have come to
expect from Forbes.com."

In introducing himself to his audience, Varadarajan wrote:

Our aim is simple and ambitious: We'd like the Opinions channel of Forbes.com to be a place readers will come every morning--and at other times during the day--for a reliably lively "fix" of views, attitude, debate and provocation.

In the few weeks he has been editing the section (Forbes.com/opinions), he has published several items of interest to South Asians and/or by South Asians:

That's not counting the most unusual piece, an essay by a 13-year-old, Gautama Mehta (the son of writer and NYU journalism professor, Suketu Mehta), writing about the new version of Facebook. His verdict: "Blechhh"

There is also Varadarajan's occasional column, "Los Estados Unidos" (Spanish for the United States),which he calls "America from an urban immigrant's perspective." Among the recent pieces: "We're on Top" (his guide to the UN) and "Obama, A to Z" (his guide to Senator Obama's campaign). Here he is, writing about Peggy Noonan writing about Sarah Palin.

Here are three questions SAJAforum posed to Varadarajan, along with his answers:

SAJAforum: Congrats on the new gigs. Why Forbes.com and why teaching at NYU?
A: I'm attracted to the rapidity of intellectual response that a Web site--as opposed to a newspaper -- makes possible. And I've always admired Steve Forbes, so it was an attractive address, as it were, for me to move to.

As for the Stern School at NYU, I like its intellectual and curricular expanse, and everything that Tom Cooley, the dean is doing for the place. I also felt that it was high time a B-school hired an Indian....<joke>

SAJAforum: What tips do you have for folks who'd like to submit opinion pieces to Forbes.com?
Timeliness, elegant writing, an opinion with some "attitude", brevity (600 words max), a non-diva-like response to editing.

SAJAforum: What did you learn from your years as an opinion editor at WSJ?
From my years as op-ed editor at the WSJ I learned that it's never a good idea to be dogmatic, and also developed a powerful aversion to boring writing.

For those looking for more guidance on opinion writing than the pithy answer above, one way to learn from Varadarajan would have been to attend the opinion writing workshops that he has taught at the SAJA conventions over the years. We have reproduced his notes and examples from a 2001 workshop below. Take a look.

Post your comments below, or write to him at tvaradar[at]stern.nyu.edu.

A handout by Tunku Varadarajan at a 2001 SAJA workshop on opinion writing...

OPINION WRITING/Tunku Varadarajan
Topics for discussion:
1.Who to pitch to, what to pitch, when to pitch, how to pitch.
2. How to write, how not to write.
3. Kinds of opinion pieces (non-exhaustive range, below, with examples).
**Not covered: The writing of unsigned editorials. But I'm happy to take
questions--on this and anything else.

============================================================================
=====================
Different kinds of opinion pieces include:
I. FULL-FRONTAL POLEMIC
II. TECHNICAL OPINION
III. TAKING ON AN ICON/CHERISHED INSTITUTION
IV. OVER THE TOP/IN YOUR FACE COMMENTARY
V. AGAINST PREVAILING SENTIMENT (AKA COUNTER-INTUITIVE)
VI. FLUFF
VII. THE BOOK REVIEW
VIII. OPINIONATED REPORTAGE
IX. NEWS THROUGH A PERSONAL FILTER
X. THE PURELY PERSONAL ESSAY

I. FULL-FRONTAL POLEMIC
Bowing Low to China
By Tunku Varadarajan

03/27/2001
The Wall Street Journal
A22
(Copyright (c) 2001, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

Rupert Murdoch, a master practitioner of the corporate kowtow, has
instructed his son James perfectly in the craft of craven submission to the
Chinese regime. The young Murdoch -- a college dropout, now CEO of his
father's Hong Kong-based Star TV company -- gave an impressive, almost
balletic, performance of the genuflectory arts last week at the Milken
Institute.
In words that astonished those gathered for the institute's annual business
conference, James Murdoch, all of 28 years, lit into the Falun Gong
religious resistance movement in China, describing it as a "dangerous" and
"apocalyptic cult," which "clearly does not have the success of China at
heart." He criticized the Western media and the Hong Kong press for negative
coverage of human-rights issues in China, concluding with the lament that
"these destabilizing forces today are very, very dangerous for the Chinese
government." Mr. Murdoch, who described himself as "apolitical," counseled
Hong Kong's democracy advocates to resign themselves to the reality of life
under an "absolutist" government.
The youthful CEO made no mention of the 150 Falun Gong members who have died
in police custody, nor of the approximately 10,000 who languish in prison.
Nor did he mention threats to Taiwan, slave labor, Tibet, arbitrary
executions or the removal for sale of organs from the bodies of those
executed. But let us not go there.
The Murdochs have had considerable success in China with their lapdog
approach, and they must see no reason why this need change. This is not the
first time a News Corp. executive has brown-nosed Beijing since a gung-ho
little speech, made by Rupert Murdoch in 1993. In that speech, Mr. Murdoch
said satellite TV was "an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes
everywhere." The angered Chinese clamped down on satellite dishes, much to
the chagrin of Mr. Murdoch, who had purchased Star TV in the hope of
capturing China's satellite market. The magnate had never before run up
against real totalitarians, and was rather startled.
In a bid to undo the commercial damage, Mr. Murdoch abased himself
immediately, dropping the BBC's World Service from Star's China beam. This
he did shamelessly, telling all the world that he'd always believed that the
folks at the BBC were pesky liberals who were out to portray China in the
worst possible light. No wonder that Christopher Patten, the last British
governor of Hong Kong, called Mr. Murdoch's decision to oust the BBC "the
most seedy of betrayals."
Mr. Patten was later the victim of another seedy betrayal. His book, "East
and West," which was to be published by the Murdoch-owned HaperCollins, was
dumped after Mr. Murdoch decided it was too critical of Beijing. In a
pre-emptive smear, designed to ward off accusations that Mr. Murdoch was
prostrating himself before Beijing, flacks at HarperCollins put out the word
that the Patten book was dropped for being "too boring." This lie was nailed
by the editor who commissioned the book, who lauded it as "probably the best
written and most compelling book I have read by a politician since I came
into publishing." Mr. Murdoch suffered a huge moral defeat when he was
compelled to apologize "unreservedly" to Mr. Patten, as well as to pay him
an undisclosed out-of-court settlement.
There are other examples, some boorish, some insidious, of Mr. Murdoch's
willingness to sing Beijing's tune. He has described the Dalai Lama as "a
very political old monk shuffling around in Gucci shoes," and has spoken of
pre-1950 Tibet, before China's illegal occupation, as being "a pretty
terrible old autocratic society out of the Middle Ages. . . . Maybe I'm
falling for propaganda, but it was an authoritarian medieval society without
any basic services." As Jonathan Mirsky, a peerless authority on China,
responded in the New Statesman of London, "Murdoch is not falling for
Chinese propaganda. He's repeating it word for word."
Mr. Mirsky has experience of how Murdoch-owned media have drawn in their
horns on China. In the last year of his five-year stint as the East Asia
editor of the London Times, Mr. Mirsky found that much of his copy --
invariably critical of the communist regime -- failed to make it into the
paper. He resigned.
Mr. Mirsky had harsh things to say about Mr. Murdoch then, and he has harsh
things to say about him now. In reaction to James Murdoch's remarks, he
mused: "Nothing the Murdochs say about China surprises me. I watched the
influence at the [London] Times. There, in the last year, reporting from
Beijing has avoided all controversial subjects and all analysis, unless they
were of huge news importance like the Falun Gong suicides ... . Whenever
possible on days when other papers such as The Wall Street Journal,
Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Post etc. were analyzing events,
the [London] Times printed old stories about early discoveries about
Christians -- and others of that sort."
What does one make of the Murdoch position on China? In my view, it is a
form of corporate prostitution, quite different from ideological blindness
or agnosticism. After all, it's one thing to make anodyne remarks about
China's need for stability and the like, and quite another to aim specific
censure at a religious movement, especially when that movement lays claim to
being the best-organized opposition to a repressive and godless regime.
The younger Mr. Murdoch (clearly with pater's blessing) accuses dissidents
of not having China's interests at heart. It's touching to see the Murdochs
compensate for the Falun Gong's unpatriotism, even though they are guilty of
confusing the interests of the small coterie governing China with those of
the Chinese people.
But the Murdoch method -- demean yourself, for it's the pragmatic thing to
do -- may, in fact, result in harm to News Corp's business. Willy Lam, a
Hong Kong-based China analyst, says the Murdochs should be more careful,
even as a cold-blooded business calculation: "Many businessmen seem willing
to do or say anything to get into the China market. This is a tricky venture
because Chinese politics is going through unprecedented changes."
Mr. Lam continues: "Rules and regulations -- and more importantly, the
cadres running the show -- can change overnight. The millions of dollars
spent, and the flattering remarks and half-truths uttered, by Western
businessmen could come to nought when the wheel of political fortune in
Beijing spins in an opposite direction."
>From a philosophical perspective, the essence of James Murdoch's position,
like that of his father, is contempt for the First Amendment bargain: to
wit, that news media are generally protected from government interference on
the understanding that they act as a check on government.
American conservatives often regard Rupert Murdoch as an ally. They are
quite wrong to do so. He has promoted social-democratic governments in
Britain (Tony Blair) and Australia (Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke and Paul
Keating) with as much alacrity as he has conservatives like Margaret
Thatcher. Now, and nakedly, Mr. Murdoch is an apologist for the Chinese
regime. The only qualification is that a government, or a politician, must
be ready to go along with his business requirements.
But China is run by sophisticated tyrants. They see the use of people like
Messrs. Murdoch, pere et fils. They aren't taken in by flattery,
unctuousness, or bowings of the corporate knee. They aren't unduly impressed
by the Murdoch attempts to be more Catholic than the pope when it comes to
China. They know that he wants to make more money in China and that he will
pay any price to do so.
They also know that the Murdochs become less useful to China by becoming
such obvious prostitutes. A touch of discretion might have served James
Murdoch better at the Milken Institute, not just in terms of public dignity,
but eventually in terms of profit as well.
---
Mr. Varadarajan is the Journal's deputy editorial features editor. His
column, from which this is adapted, appears on OpinionJournal.com on
Mondays.
---
(See related letter: "Letters to the Editor: Why Won't Fox Touch China
Smuggling Story?" -- WSJ April 10, 2001)

Copyright © 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
============================================================================
=====================

II. TECHNICAL OPINION
Why Is the ABA Afraid of a Little Competition for Lawyers?
by Tunku Varadarajan

07/24/2000
The Wall Street Journal
A27
(Copyright (c) 2000, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

There is a character in "The Master-singers of Nuremberg," an opera Richard
Wagner intended as a benign parable, called Sixtus Beckmesser. He is the
embodiment of prejudice against change, a nitpicking guild member who abhors
a new challenge, a defender of the barriers that keep safe his cozy status.
Were he alive today and living in America, it's likely that he would be a
member of the American Bar Association.
A flock of modern-day Beckmessers gathered together earlier this month at a
meeting of the ABA's House of Delegates. They voted on a matter that the ABA
has described, with astonishing hyperbole, as the most important issue
facing the legal profession in the past 100 years.
The delegates voted to maintain the ABA's prohibitions against lawyers
sharing fees with non-lawyers. They explicitly rejected a proposed change in
their professional rules that would have allowed "multi-disciplinary
partnerships," or MDPs, in the U.S. These partnerships would largely have
been with firms of accountants, although estate planners, marriage
counselors, investment bankers and others would surely have followed suit in
concluding professional coalitions with law firms.
One might call these partnerships marriages of convenience, except that
there would be nothing shoddy about the alliance: The convenience here
achieved would favor clients the most, allowing for "one-stop shopping" from
a large menu of services. This was acknowledged by the ABA's own Commission
on Multidisciplinary Practice, which had recommended that, subject to
certain safeguards, "lawyers should be permitted to share fees and join with
nonlawyer professionals in a practice that delivers both legal and nonlegal
professional services."
State bar associations aren't required to follow the ABA's rules, but they
usually do. By voting against change, the ABA's delegates confirmed yet
again that their instincts are protectionist and that they subscribe not so
much to a free market system as to a guild system -- and perhaps even to a
caste system, with lawyers at the apex of the pyramid. To illustrate the
point best, one might turn to written remarks submitted by Lawrence Fox, a
Philadelphia attorney, to the ABA's MDP commission.
Expressing the views of diehard supporters of the status quo, he railed
against the threat to the soul of the legal profession that would come from
accountants, especially the Big Five accounting firms, which are pushing the
hardest for permission to set up MDPs. These firms have already hired
thousands of lawyers. Arthur Andersen, for example, reported recently that
it employs 2,734 lawyers in 35 countries.
Yet in the U.S., these lawyers are not described as "practicing law," as
Rule 5.4 of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct states that a lawyer
shall not practice law in an enterprise in which a non-lawyer owns any
interest. So to beat the anti-competitive rules of a protectionist system,
the Big Five's lawyers are described as "practicing tax." Is this
manipulative of the rules? Perhaps. Is it wrong? The market doesn't think
so.
Mr. Fox, however, has written that "this road leads to perdition" and that
"accounting firms are a one profession wrecking crew, destroying any ethical
rules that stand in their path." His view is that MDPs will threaten client
confidentiality and destroy the independence of the legal profession, and
that is, in fact, the standard anti-MDP line.
Describing the pro-MDP lobby as "Philistines" and "Visigoths," he concludes
on a hysterical note: "The independence of our profession has significant
institutional value for our American society . . . What will happen to these
values when lawyers work for others in for-profit enterprises providing
legal services to the world? Can we expect Arthur Andersen to take a
tolerant attitude toward a death penalty representation? Or Sears to be
pleased its lawyer employees are supporting the Legal Services Corporation,
the funder of consumer complaints on behalf of the indigent?"
This is all a bit ripe, and steeped in the specious belief that lawyers are
important engines of social change. How seriously is one to take the
argument (made by one of America's highest-earning professions) that MDPs
will threaten pro bono work, reducing lawyers to the status of vulgar
businessmen?
In any case, as Judge Richard Posner of the 7th Circuit has pointed out, the
perception of pro bono work as good citizenry is misleading. In his book
"Overcoming Law," he wrote: "The `ethical' obligation of lawyers to devote a
certain amount of their time to `pro bono' work . . . limits the supply of
legal services to the market while jacking up the demand. For the more legal
assistance indigents have, the more paid legal assistance their adversaries
. . . need."
Are the opponents of change, by any chance, afraid of market forces entering
the legal profession? From a consumer's point of view, the benefits, quite
undeniably, outweigh the negatives. Besides, the legal profession could
stand to gain from some serious competition. The prohibition against
fee-sharing is a nakedly anti-competitive tool, akin to the limitations on
the jurisdictions in which a lawyer can practice.
But what about the core fears of Mr. Fox, and others of his ilk? What will
become of client confidence and the lawyers' independence?
The response to this is that the market must be allowed to resolve any
angularities that might arise from one-stop shops. The success or failure of
MDPs will depend entirely on the extent to which these enterprises provide
optimal levels of confidentiality. If the market is allowed to work -- and
MDPs are given room to breathe -- the perceived problems are likely to melt
away. The forces of change are bearing down on the legal profession. There
are already de facto MDPs in existence in the U.S., not to mention perfectly
legitimate ones in other parts of the world. Mr. Fox should be informed that
civilization, as we know it, has not ended as a result.
Instead of turning their backs on change, shouldn't lawyers join forces with
other professions and milk advantage from these irrepressible, demand-driven
shifts in professional structures and strategy? Shouldn't the Beckmessers
learn to sing a brand new song?
---
Mr. Varadarajan is a senior editorial page writer for the Journal.
(See related letter: "Letters to the Editor: Keep Them Separate" -- WSJ
August 16, 2000)

01/26/2000
The Wall Street Journal
A20
(Copyright (c) 2000, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

New York -- Vidia ("V.S.") Naipaul, the writer, was being interviewed on
Monday afternoon on National Public Radio. I was listening intently, and
couldn't help noticing that he was being unexpectedly gracious for a man
reputed to be a curmudgeon. Time after time, the show's hostess, Melinda
Penkava, referred to him as "Sir Naipaul," a basic solecism that he allowed
to pass unchecked. The Naipaul of a few years ago would surely have let it
be known, crustily, that the correct way to address him is "Sir Vidia," if
one chooses to bend a knee to titles.
Another possibility -- that Mr. Naipaul had lost his edge -- occurred to me,
but I dismissed it as fanciful. I shouldn't have. That same night, at a
reading of his own work at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, he was jaded and
becalmed, of more interest as a literary icon than for anything he read or
said. His reception, by about 900 New Yorkers -- who packed the Y's
Unterberg Poetry Center like an overcrowded subway car -- was genuinely
warm, even reverential. But in their hearts, many of those who came to see
him, and to listen to him, would have returned home disillusioned.
The evening was, for the most part, profoundly hollow. The 69-year-old
writer stood at the lectern and read a chapter from "Beyond Belief,"
published in 1998, in which he makes "Islamic excursions" to Indonesia,
Iran, Pakistan and Malaysia. He did not read from "Between Father and Son,"
a very moving book of family letters published only this month, one that
bears his imprimatur but not his stamp of labor. (The letters, mainly
between Mr. Naipaul and his beloved father, Seepersad, were edited by Gillon
Aitken; Mr. Naipaul's contribution was limited to giving permission for
their use.) "I'm not reading from the letters," he declared at the Y. "The
contours would be too personal for me, too wounding, too raw." Later in the
evening, we were to get a glimpse -- but only a fleeting one -- of how raw
these contours truly are.
Mr. Naipaul's diction is so precise that one is never sure whether he says
something merely for effect, or from deep conviction. That same diction
makes for a cautious, although not unattractive, reading voice. For the
faithful at the Y, he chose to read a chapter from the Malaysian leg of
"Beyond Belief," entitled "The Bomoh's Son." (A bomoh is a shaman, or
healer.) It was a choice into which much thought had gone, and the
relationship between the bomoh and his son was clearly intended to give the
audience a father-son narrative to replace the Seepersad-Vidia story, the
one that was "too personal." But I must confess to finding the chapter --
like the rest of "Beyond Belief" -- to be on the dull side, with too much
anecdote and observation for too little analytic profit.
Mr. Naipaul's psychic anguish must be considerable, however, for toward the
end of the too-long chapter -- which took him an hour to read -- he choked
up. The bomoh is old and bedridden, and his son, Rashid, pays him a visit.
Naipaul read this sentence, and then stalled for a few seconds, unable to
continue: "Rashid, seeing his father so close to death, thought of his hard
childhood, and of all that he had managed to do. All his children, so many
of them born at an unpromising time, were now well placed." A single tear
trickled down the right side of Mr. Naipaul's face, past the bag under his
eye, until it reached the neat edge of his sparse gray beard. He did not
attempt to brush it away, as he focused his energies on recovering his
voice. If he had been so affected by the insipid prose of "Beyond Belief" --
admittedly his own prose, which can be a heady thing for a self-absorbed
writer -- perhaps he had acted wisely in choosing not to read from the book
of his, and his own father's, letters.
But Naipaul is nothing if not the master of his own situations. Having
allowed himself a moment of public frailty, he swiftly finished the reading
and retired to a back room to vet the questions that had been put to him in
writing by the audience, probably about 50 in all. I, too, had posed one,
seeking his reaction to Paul Theroux's recent, boorish, book, "Sir Vidia's
Shadow," in which Mr. Theroux skewers Mr. Naipaul for ending their
friendship. My question was ignored. In fact, Mr. Naipaul picked only four
questions, and these were the softest, blandest queries a writer could hope
for. To two of these questions he gave answers that amounted to no more than
one-liners, and he devoted no more than five minutes, in all, to his
answers.
Was he a follower of any religion? "I have no faith at all" was all he said,
without frill or further explanation, and with the plump smugness of a man
who is convinced of his own sagacity. Would he be writing again about the
U.S., a country he last addressed in "A Turn in the South"? "Not really,
no," was his terse response. The audience laughed at this perfunctoriness,
but there was consternation behind the mirth. People had paid good money and
wanted to be treated with a little more respect. Perhaps sensing this, Mr.
Naipaul added that "one doesn't write at random," and that he pursued
certain interests; once these were exhausted, he didn't think he should
explore them any more. Ah!
Then came the most banal question of all: Is religion, someone had asked, an
innate human impulse? Or is it a contrivance? Naipaul responded, with
matching banality, that "it's social convention . . . religion is an
enduring human prompting." He said no more, leading one to wonder why in
God's name he'd chosen that particular question.
In the end, the host slipped in a poser about the book of letters. Why had
Mr. Naipaul allowed them to be published? The writer, at long last, said
something of interest, and something moving. "I thought that the letters
were a cultural record of our community, the Hindu community of Trinidad.
Should I have kept it private? No, I didn't want to do that. They've given
my father a kind of fame." He then smiled a wan smile, a wistful smile, a
smile that had lost its edge.

Copyright © 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
============================================================================
=====================
IV. OVER THE TOP/IN YOUR FACE COMMENTARY
OpinionJournal/Wall Street Journal Online
CITIZEN OF THE WORLD
I Can't Stand Lieberman
Has no one else noticed that the man is a phony?
BY TUNKU VARADARAJAN
Monday, October 9, 2000 12:01 a.m. EDT

My 58-year-old mother gave me some good advice about this column. She said,
"Sweetheart"--as she is prone to call me--"remember, be positive, and know
that I will love you no matter what your readers say about you." Well, mom,
as always, that was both reassuring and wise.
Now readers, answer this question: Did my introduction strike you as . . .
no, not as emetic, that is too strong . . . Did it strike you as perhaps a
touch too treacly? Did it nauseate you a trifle, make you feel mildly ill,
instill in you the urge to open the nearest window and let in a gust of
fresh air? I'd be surprised--gobsmacked, even--if you didn't, at the very
least, say "Yuck."
Since not all of you are steeped in politics, I must reveal swiftly that
these words are not my own. I have lifted them from the opening remarks made
by Sen. Joseph Lieberman in his television debate last week with Dick
Cheney. Mutatis mutandis--his mother is 85, and he referred to his opponent
instead of his readers--the words are entirely Mr. Lieberman's, words that
he was utterly unembarrassed to speak before an audience of millions.
I don't like Mr. Lieberman. In fact, I can't abide him. Whenever I see him
on television, I'm inclined either to mutter angrily at him or to change the
channel. The funny thing is that my wife, who is a Democrat, is not at all
offended by my behavior, or by my antipathy to Mr. Lieberman. This tolerance
is not the product of some elaborate marital pact, whereby political
disagreements are ignored in the interest of domestic harmony. The simple
fact is that she doesn't understand why, as she puts it, "he's being treated
like a saint."
The liberal elements in our media have, indeed, anointed him as some sort of
Old Testament patriarch. But he's just a politician, a professional
politico. He has said nothing spontaneous for two decades at least, his life
being a carefully calibrated exercise in unassailability. He has plotted
every aspect of his persona as carefully as the best cartographer, measuring
precisely how much of a Jew he can be, and as a Jew how Orthodox, and as an
Orthodox Jew how flexible, and as a flexible Orthodox Jew how credible, and
as a credibly flexible Orthodox Jew how electable.
His policy flip-flops have been documented in the press, and I don't intend
to reiterate them here. I'm content to say, and then rest my case, that he's
skipped from old positions to new ones as nimbly as my young daughters evade
bedtime. My objection to Mr. Lieberman is not fundamentally issues-based,
although I cannot ignore that dimension entirely. It is grounded instead in
impressions I've come to draw from his actions, his statements, and his
moralizing code words. I detest his gaudy invocations of God. (After the
election someone should do a search through a database of campaign
utterances and reveal the precise number of times Mr. Lieberman used the
word.)
Most of all, I detest the way in which he casts himself--a Jew--as an
outsider in America. After the debate with Mr. Cheney, he thanked the
American people effusively, and ingratiatingly. It was the effusiveness of a
man posing as an outsider, of a man giving thanks to his generous "hosts."
Consider these words, which I quote in full from his closing remarks at the
debate: "If my dad were here, I would have the opportunity to tell him that
he was right when he taught me that in America, if you have faith, work hard
and play by the rules, there is nothing you cannot achieve. And here I am,
even the son of a man who started working the night shift on a bakery truck
can end up being a candidate for vice president of the United States. That
says a lot about the character of this nation and the goodness of you, the
American people."
These are the words of a man who went to Yale. But the man who went to Yale
would like us to believe that he is akin to an immigrant. More: These are
not words that bear a proletarian message. These words are about his
Jewishness. And they are thanking America for welcoming a Jewish candidate
into the political mainstream. These words are pandering words, playing to
an imagined gallery that would see Jews as outside the mainstream, and
giving thanks to that same mainstream for letting him, a Jew, run
competitively for vice president.
I'm an immigrant, and Mr. Lieberman's spiel is as unappetizing to me as a
cold chicken curry. I think Mr. Lieberman's a fraud. I think he's an
unctuous and fulsome fraud. He's also a dangerous fraud, because he's taken
everyone in, duped them into seeing him--Joe Chameleon--as a moral wind
vane. He is, truly, a moral equivocator (to use a word employed by Frank
Rich), a moral opportunist, a moral social-climber.
Looking back, I refuse to believe that his criticism of Bill Clinton at the
time of the president's impeachment was anything other than opportunist. Mr.
Lieberman's words then strike me now as having been made with an eye on the
main chance. He knew that there would soon be a new dispensation in the
Democratic Party--a new dispensation in America--and he was pinning his
colors to a new flag. He wanted to be the first so that he could, later, be
among the powerful. How else does one explain his failure to put his vote
where his mouth was?
Contrast this with his vote against Clarence Thomas, on evidence that was
substantially less compelling than the evidence against Mr. Clinton, and on
the basis of charges that were far less severe. No, Mr. Lieberman wasn't
really pained, or troubled, or horrified by the president's behavior. He
was, in fact, energized by it. He saw his own future in Mr. Clinton's past.
There is less to Mr. Lieberman than meets the eye. And that is why I dislike
him. He has puffed himself into a size that is larger than the sum of his
accomplishments and merits. With this column, Mom--sweetheart, as I am prone
to call you--I take my little pinprick to Mr. Lieberman.
Mr. Varadarajan is deputy editorial features editor of The Wall Street
Journal. His column appears Mondays.
============================================================================
=====================
V. AGAINST PREVAILING SENTIMENT (AKA COUNTER-INTUITIVE)
OpinionJournal/Wall Street Journal Online
CITIZEN OF THE WORLD
A Bog of Banality
An execution is an occasion for quiet reflection, not mawkish
sentimentality.

BY TUNKU VARADARAJAN
Tuesday, June 12, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT

American society, no less wise or spiritual than those abroad who regard our
criminal justice with disdain, is a society that elects to put its murderers
to death. One such case, that of Timothy McVeigh, came to a conclusion
yesterday and reflected this society's broad consensus on the
fitness--here--of retribution.
McVeigh got his just deserts, and even those who would normally complain
loudly at an execution have been unusually quiet, even composed, as if the
enormity of the man's crime had ensured that his case would transcend the
ordinary levels of debate and disagreement.
That said, I confess to having had a queasy feeling yesterday morning, as I
watched CNN beamed to me from the federal penitentiary at Terre Haute, Ind.,
as well as from Oklahoma City. Instead of quiet and reflection, I found a
wordy deluge, as some relatives of McVeigh's victims took the opportunity to
tell us about their feelings. I wish we'd been spared that.
I will take no names, and speak in generalities. I think these people erred
in thrusting themselves forward for interview and speech. What dignity is
there in putting before the cameras the photos of loved ones who died in the
explosion? What dignity is there in breaking off in midsentence--in response
to a reporter's shouted question--to say, "I'm 38 years old"? What dignity
is there in being a talking head at a time for reflection?
I don't mean to scoff at these people, or to diminish their sentiments. I
wish, merely, to note the unwitting gaudiness of their display, and to
express my disapproval of the declamatory spectacle of pain that followed
McVeigh's execution. It's a matter of taste.
Actually, it's more than that. It's a reflection of our age, which has no
time for stilled voices, for the quiet word, for unspoken strength and
courage. The aesthetics of our age, and of our news-gathering, dictate that
nothing's true, or worthwhile, unless there's a picture, an energetic
recitation, a caption that says "mother/daughter of victims," a shouted
question ("Sir, sir, how do you spell your name?").
It's a reflection, also, of our hokeyness, and of our pseudotherapeutic
ways. Our overanalyzed society has been exhorted to value "closure." Speak
out, we're told. You'll feel better. So people speak out, even when they
should not, and stumble into a bog of banality.
Here are a few of the statements made to the cameras yesterday:
[]"I'm glad I was here for my mom. I expected more closure or relief. It
really didn't provide as much as I thought it would, but time will tell."
[]"It's over. There's some relief, but it really doesn't change anything."
[]"What I was hoping for is that we could see some kind of 'I'm sorry,' but
we didn't get anything like that. My emotions were that it was just a big
relief. Just a big sigh came over my body and it felt real good."
Why say this aloud? Why say this to perfect strangers? Why say this to half
the world--for half the world was watching. Why say all this to anyone but
to your closest friends, to your family, to yourself in the mirror?
I wish these people well. I mean them no ill will. I want them to grasp that
there's no "closure" in stepping on a dais and unmasking one's grief there,
or one's rage. Our society is judged by how we punish our offenders. Let us
also be judged by how we manage our grief, and our rage.
Mr. Varadarajan is deputy editorial features editor of The Wall Street
Journal. His column will appear Fridays in May.
============================================================================
=====================
VI. FLUFF
WEEKEND JOURNAL
Taste -- de gustibus: Manly Men Keep A Stiff Upper Lip, And a Bare One
By Tunku Varadarajan

09/22/2000
The Wall Street Journal
W17
(Copyright (c) 2000, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

Women seldom make passes at men with mustaches. Dorothy Parker didn't say
that, my wife did -- or wounding words to that effect -- when we met for the
very first time. I had a mustache then, a fine, manly specimen, which I
twirled up at the ends for extra effect. By our third meeting, it was gone.
In sum, I gained a lovely wife but surrendered forever my right to a
mustache. On balance, I would say that the contract has been an agreeable
one.
That doesn't stop me from cultivating a sturdy nostalgia for my mustache, or
from looking back occasionally -- and wistfully -- on the days when I was
free to grow one. These feelings came to the surface some days ago when my
brother, who lives in Delhi, sent me an urgent request for his favorite
brand of mustache wax, which he believed I could buy in New York. He's
running dangerously low on supplies bought last year in Europe and does not
want to have to resort to Fix-O, the local Indian brand. Fix-O is a gooey,
green substance that causes a slight encrustation of the mustache, so I
understand his panic.
He may, I fear, have to make do with Fix-O for an uncomfortable while. My
inquiries in New York -- at several barbers' -- proved fruitless. Determined
to find some decent wax, I resorted next to the Internet. Typing the word
"moustache" (as I was taught to spell it) did not help, as I was flooded
with results that were mainly for homosexuals. ("Beards and Moustaches by
Gayscape," "Moustache: Relax Club for Gays" and so forth.) "Mustache,"
spelled the American way, proved marginally less lurid.
I did, eventually, find "Skippy's Mustasjevoks" (at www.skippys.no), a
Norwegian company run by a man called Ole Skibnes. (Here's what he says
about himself: "I'm a resident of the city of Trondheim, Norway. I'm married
and have three lovely daughters. In addition to my passionate work with this
firm and other mustache related activities I work as a policeman in
Trondheim police department.") I have asked Mr. Skibnes if he can ship his
wax to India, and await his response. I think my brother's problem is nearer
resolution.
Of course, it is astonishing that I cannot buy this product in New York.
This city, as with much of urban America, would appear to have an aversion
to facial hair. This is not a recent phenomenon: Cosmopolitan America's
disregard for the mustache can be gauged from the fact that the last
president to sport any sort of facial hair was William Howard Taft. One can
also be sure that if either Al Gore or George W. Bush chose to grow a
mustache this month, neither would make it to the house where Taft once
lived.
This popular abhorrence could be the result of a medley of factors: an
obsession with hygiene, for one, crossed with a certain Protestant ethic, by
which self-betterment is associated with a "clean look." Besides, men no
longer need the mustache as a virility symbol. In the old days -- of the
Civil War, of Crimea, of Kipling's subalterns on the Afghan frontier -- a
hirsute swarthiness was part of virility, of a warrior code. But as
war-making has become more efficient, less mano a mano, men no longer need
to look fierce, or even manly.
The cult of the mustache persists only in ultra-patriarchal societies, like
India or Turkey. This, simply put, is a case of "me man, hairy, dominant /
you woman, hairless, submissive." In our cities, as male dominance abates,
few men are hirsute. Those with beards are preponderantly college professors
and orthodox Jews or Muslims.
Mustaches still offer a complex anthropology. As my Internet encounter
confirmed, the mustache has enjoyed a certain status as a gay "signifier" in
the West. But a homosexual academic I questioned told me that the mustache
has now "receded as a gay accouterment, just as gays themselves have begun
to recede from view, losing their distinctive tribal marks as society's
tolerance increases."
In urban America, mustachioed men are now more likely to be blue-collar --
cops, firemen, construction workers -- or people from a non-American
culture, where facial hair is not disdained. In some corners of the world,
far from Manhattan, a mustache is still a serious business. In parts of
rural India, the act of twirling your mustache in the presence of a woman is
enough to suggest that you desire her. This, not surprisingly, could lead to
violence, especially if the woman has a male relative present to take
umbrage.
In America, such mustachioed imagery would have little impact. As my wife
made clear, the women here will not stand for it. And then, to cap it all,
there's this terrible shortage of wax.

03/22/2001
The Wall Street Journal Europe
9
(Copyright (c) 2001, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

"India Unbound"
By Gurcharan Das
When my mother started her own factory some 15 years ago in Delhi, hers was
the first instance in the history of my family when someone, anyone, went
into business. Being Brahmins, we had disdained the making of money. Until
the 20th century, and for as long back as there are records, the men in the
family had been priests, serving in Hindu temples or in private arrangements
with landed or moneyed families. In the early 1900s, having imbibed a
British education, they flocked to the civil service, the new priesthood of
modern India.
I mention this because Gurcharan Das, the author of "India Unbound" (Knopf,
406 pages), shares my experience of a high-caste family detached from the
creation of wealth. "Like many Indians," he writes, "our family did not
accord a high place to the making of money. Thus, I grew up with a low
opinion of commerce and merchants."
Mr. Das is eager to see India freed (or "unbound") from the trammels of such
presumptions, as well as from the heavy statism that has been their result.
And indeed, he sees some hope in the high-tech revolution of recent years.
But in the main, he prefers to trace the evolution of India's economic
misery, for which, he believes, its governing classes bear most blame.
Independent India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, had, like the
young Mr. Das, a low opinion of anything commercial. "Never talk to me about
profit," he once scolded J.R.D. Tata, India's foremost industrialist. "It is
a dirty word." This aversion to free enterprise can be attributed, in part,
to a Brahmin's sense that money sullies the soul. Yet it was the product,
largely, of a destructive fascination with Fabian socialism -- that is, the
nonrevolutionary, British-born variety -- and of a blind admiration for the
Soviet system of centralized economic planning.
Nehru, a sanctimonious snob who was never entirely able to treat his fellow
Indians as equals, dragged his country down in the years after the British
left. He imposed on India a complex of malfunctioning, state-run, industrial
white elephants, all the while denying private entrepreneurs the right to
seek investment from abroad, or to export without oppressive controls, or to
import at will the materials and technology needed to establish competitive
industries in India. Meanwhile, he neglected India's agriculture, forcing
the country to rely on American food aid to feed itself while he blithely
charted a pro-Soviet, anti-American foreign policy under the flimsy guise of
nonalignment.
Mr. Das's book seeks to explain why India, a country once rich -- or, at
least, once a country of riches -- is today largely impoverished. He
ascribes some blame to the British colonizers -- and who would not? -- for
the manner in which wealth was extracted from India but seldom, if ever,
plowed back. But the strength of his inquiry lies in its castigation of
those who inherited the running of India from the British. He is commendably
scathing about Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi, who had her father's
hubris and contempt for businessmen but not a trace of his erudition.
The author regards economic growth as the only way to strengthen Indian
democracy. One of his unsung men of mettle is Lal Bahadur Shastri, who
succeeded Nehru and set in train the Green Revolution, by which India became
a net exporter of food. Shastri's untimely death in 1966 paved the way for
the ghastly Mrs. Gandhi. Another Das hero is Narasimha Rao, the prime
minister who, in 1991, brought India its first truly meaningful package of
economic reforms.
His other heroes are the Indian people themselves, who have flourished
abroad in climes more favorable to free enterprise and who, in India, battle
cheerfully against a system that, in spite of some reforms in the last
decade, still does more to stifle enterprise than to encourage it.
---
Mr. Varadarajan is the Journal's deputy editorial features editor.

Copyright © 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
============================================================================
==========
VIII. OPINIONATED REPORTAGE
Even the Playmates Are Protesting
By Tunku Varadarajan

08/18/2000
The Wall Street Journal
A14
(Copyright (c) 2000, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

LOS ANGELES -- Saturday night at the Playboy Mansion: Proximity to a
beautiful woman tends, I find, to lead to disillusionment. Call me a cad,
but I can't help noticing how spotty Neriah Davis, Miss March 1994, is under
all her makeup. We are in a crush by an outdoor bar, and I've managed
artfully to wedge myself right beside her -- much to the consternation of a
man from the Washington Post (of whom more later).
Ms. Davis, dressed in a jade bunny suit, is a fizzy, flaxen creature, eager
to engage in political debate at this media party for the Democratic
Convention. "Everyone's asking me," she pouts, "if my suit's too tight. No
one's asked which way I'm going to vote." On cue, in the best traditions of
Journal reporting, I inquire after her choice for president. Her reply is
tart and swift: "Not Al Gore, for sure. He's a wooden Indian."
The Democrats have just canceled a fund-raiser at the mansion, citing
reasons of propriety, and the Playmates are miffed. "They've slapped Hef in
the face. And they've slapped me too. I take it very personally." I
sympathize: This isn't just an underling's umbrage at a slight to her
master. This Playmate's indignation springs from a deeper source. The
Democrats have impugned her raison d'etre, and this has made her "really,
really mad." In fact, she is now going to vote -- "and maybe even campaign"
-- for Ralph Nader.
Mr. Hefner appears an hour later, a dazzling consort by his side, and is
pounced on by Lloyd Grove of the Washington Post. Towering over his quarry,
Mr. Grove hectors the hapless Hef for several minutes, allowing no other
reporter to approach with questions. I try, and am told by Mr. Grove to
"keep quiet," without so much as a "please." A female reporter attempts to
speak too, but the Post's man snaps her into silence with a menacing "Do you
mind!" Mr. Hefner's young squeeze shrinks back in alarm, and the old rake,
now 74, leaves soon after, gesturing to his aides that he's had enough of
the press. "Wow!" breathes a Playboy apparatchik. "You journalists are so
competitive!"
Sunday night in the Hollywood Hills: Journalists, though coarse, aren't
quite as competitive as Hollywood agents, who swarm to a convention party
hosted by Danny Bonaduce. Mr. Bonaduce is a Los Angeles disk jockey whose
radio show might be described as intellectually nonthreatening. (Readers of
a certain age will recall that he cut his earliest slice of fame as a
freckled juvenile on "The Partridge Family" -- a TV series now deemed too
dowdy even for the reruns.)
Fleeing from the loud band, I find refuge in the company of Betty Bonaduce,
the DJ's old and stalwart mother, who is cramming baked brie into her mouth
in a corner of the capacious kitchen. "Why has my son thrown this party?"
she asks. "He's not even a Democrat!" She clucks disapprovingly over the
"amount of money Danny has spent on all this." I shrug, smile, and emulate
her assault on the brie. Gazing at the graceful view through the kitchen
window, we chew in tandem, united by a passion for unpasteurized cheese.
Monday morning in Pershing Square: A large crowd gathers to express its
raucous solidarity with the U'Wa Indians of the Colombian cloud forest, as
well as to "expose" Mr. Gore's shareholdings in Occidental Petroleum. The
oil company, adjudged guilty in the people's court of "raping sacred U'Wa
land," is called "Oxy" by the protesters, and never has a diminutive been
employed with less affectionate intent.
I stand on the square's northeast corner, by a statue of Beethoven, while an
activist "honors the four directions." She does this by blowing a conch
loudly, first east, then south, west and north. She next beats a little drum
in a thump-thump-thump rhythm -- also in the four directions. This tedious
ritual takes about 10 minutes, after which a member of a group called the
Ruckus Society leaps onstage to restore a semblance of anarchy. "I'm not
really used to speaking in public," he concedes, after a few minutes of
inarticulate rambling. "I do a lot more direct action."
In the crowd, poised for just that kind of action, stand menacing knots of
men in black -- in black track bottoms, black hooded tops, black boots,
black bandanas over faces, black dirt under fingernails. These are the
"Black Block Anarchists," itinerant goons who stalk the land in search of
any significant event where representatives of "the system" are gathered. I
try talking to some of them but get only half-baked mantras, half-digested
dogma and full-blown political gibberish in response. The state should be
"smashed." The system should be "buried." The destruction of property is
"not violence"; in fact, says one, "property is violence."
We set off from Pershing Square toward the Staples Center, a mile away,
where the Democrats are convening. "Gore, Gore, corporate whore," the
marchers chant, alternating this with the more lurid, and less euphonic,
"Gore profits from indigenous blood."
I fall into step beside a protester from Van Nuys, Calif. It is 85 degrees,
and the heat is malevolent, and she is carrying a flushed, dehydrated boy in
her arms. I introduce myself and ask about the child. "His name is Anthony,"
she replies. "He's four years old, and I've been using him at demonstrations
since he was six months." Her choice of verb -- "use," not "take" or "bring"
-- makes my heart wilt.
Does he know why he's here? I ask. She quizzes the boy, and the boy says no.
"He's tired, otherwise he would tell us. He's been on many demonstrations,
even against Disney." Does this four-year-old not like Disney? I ask,
incredulous. She checks with Anthony, who is now cranky and contrary. "Do
you like Disney?" "Yes," he replies, nodding his head with sudden energy --
and with early signs of rebellion.
Tuesday afternoon in MacArthur Park: I am impressed today by the linguistic
dexterity of the demo industry. The Bus Riders Union is marching from this
scruffy park -- home, at night, to pimps and pushers -- in protest against
something called "transit racism." Nonwhites predominate in L.A.'s inner
city, and they don't, on the whole, own cars. The inner city has terrible
bus service. It follows from this that the policies of the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority are racist -- or, at the very last, transit-racist,
especially as "billions" have been spent on rail lines in the white,
middle-class suburbs, and hardly anything on buses.
I must declare a soft spot for the largely Latino Bus Riders Union. Unlike
the march for the U'Wa, this protest has a mush-free message, as well as an
old-fashioned proletarian flavor. The majority of the marchers are local
people, and the "rent a mob" presence is less significant -- and much less
obnoxious. As someone who does not know how to drive a car, I can appreciate
a sturdy clamor for better public transport. I must declare, also, that
their Spanish-language chants are much less grating than the English slogans
for the U'Wa. Spanish is a better language for song, and for lyric poetry.
It stands to reason that it should also have a finer prosody of protest.
Tuesday evening in Pershing Square: I attend a collective "kiss-in," keeping
a prudent distance from a contingent that waves "I'm a Tranny Faggot"
placards ("tranny" meaning apparently "transsexual"). Organized by a group
called Queers & Allies, the event is a protest against "the homophobic Al
Gore" and our "gay- and dyke-hating society." Gay, lesbian and transgender
liberationists call for "more homo, less phobia," and declare that "the gay
genocide of AIDS can only be tackled with universal health care."
A very angry homosexual excoriates the police for "attacking us when we make
love in parks." There is also a din raised in favor of "abortion on demand,"
although the prospects for any impregnation here look pretty bleak to me.
Finally, a bossy woman in blue overalls bellows the word "Kiss!" into the
microphone, and hundreds of same-sex couples comply gleefully. I am
transfixed, for this mass locking of lips makes for compelling, and
grotesque, theater.
As I leave, I am handed a small pink flyer that demands that "the US
government end its devastating appetite for free trade and militarism and
instead support international human rights for all people including queers."
Seconds later, another flyer -- yellow this time -- is thrust into my hand.
The propagandist is an old woman, dressed in a cotton frock of staid
pattern. What fringe sorority is she from, I wonder? Lesbian grannies?
Dowager dykes? I glance at the sheet, and then back at her. "You can't be
serious!" I exclaim. She grins through gap-teeth, and says sibilantly: "Is
the best in Los Angeles!"
I give the dear, old girl a hug. Here, at last, is a person I can
understand. Her yellow sheet -- her bright yellow sheet -- is a menu for a
Brazilian restaurant.
---
Mr. Varadarajan is a senior editorial page writer at the Journal.

06/20/2001
The Wall Street Journal Europe
6
(Copyright (c) 2001, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

A man I once met -- and in whose exquisite company I spent the better part
of an afternoon five years ago, taking oolong tea with pastries, followed by
a glass of silken cognac for the road -- is in the news this week. And I
couldn't be more delighted.
I write of Simeon II, or Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, whose party just won at
least half of the seats in Bulgaria's parliamentary elections -- 120 out of
240.
Simeon II, or, if you prefer, just plain Mr. Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, is a man
who, had he not had to flee for his life from Bulgaria's Communists in 1946
-- and into exile, age nine -- would almost certainly have been his
country's king today.
Instead, he is now spoken of as a likely candidate for Bulgaria's next prime
minister -- though he has stated clearly that he'd rather see someone else
in that job. Personally, I hope he sticks to his word, and does not allow
his arm to be twisted by exuberant supporters. I do not want him to be the
Bulgarian prime minister. I want him to be king.
I met Simeon in Madrid, the city he made his home shortly after his escape
from Bulgaria. Gen. Francisco Franco, of whom it is fashionable now to say
unkind things, took him into Spain with open arms. Were he alive today,
Franco -- whose restoration of the Spanish monarchy laid the foundation for
a stable, modern and democratic Spain -- would marvel at events in Bulgaria.
After all, it took an election -- a concept of which the old caudillo was
not overly fond -- to restore to center stage the nice young boy he once
gave refuge.
It is a measure of Simeon's integrity -- and of his chivalry -- that he did
not once utter a critical word about Franco when we met. I believe he has
never once bad-mouthed the late autocrat in public. He could so easily do
so, and win brownie points from Europe's lazy "progressives"; but the man,
born to be king, does not easily forget his debts.
I met Simeon in his Madrid home in order to write a detailed profile. To my
great chagrin, my foreign editor -- I was then with the London Times, as the
Madrid bureau chief -- showed no interest in the copy I sent him.
I had sought out the ex-king on my own initiative, but the desk in London
had not the vision to appreciate that Simeon would one day be "a story." I
was told, brusquely, to write about bullfighters instead, and so my copy
withered on the vine. Simeon was charming about it, of course. I can't
remember his exact words, but he said something soothing like Caballero, no
se preocupe, or "Don't worry, dear sir," when I told him dejectedly, over
the phone, that the paper didn't give a fig about the piece.
That's not the only reason I warmed to Simeon, although his grace in the
face of a setback -- yes, it was a setback, for a profile in the London
Times would have made waves for him in Bulgaria back in 1996 -- was
admirable. I recall the irrefutable evidence, in his speech and
conversation, of breeding, education and thoughtfulness, as well as a real,
unfeigned modesty.
I was struck, too, by his simple patriotism -- by his profession of love for
Bulgaria that was neither hokey nor patronizing -- as well as by his grasp
of market economics. Above all, I came away with the impression that he
would not enter the political fray in Bulgaria -- or "meddle in politics,"
as his oafish detractors are wont to say -- unless he were sure that the
people there welcomed his presence.
I think something very important has happened in Bulgaria this week, and
that we are on course for a tectonic shift in that country's politics.
Bulgaria longs to join hands with the more modern nations of Europe, and
shake off the grime of its communist and postcommunist past.
The restoration of the throne, and of Simeon II, a modern man -- a
businessman, for that is what he's been all these years -- will give that
country a new foundation on which to construct its politics afresh.
Bulgarians will take their time to warm again to the idea of their monarchy
-- revolutions, after all, need a period of incubation -- but I have no
doubt that they will do so, and not before too long.
The return to the throne of Simeon will be nothing short of a political
revolution, one with repercussions that could go well beyond Bulgaria's
borders. The fractious, dilapidated societies of the former Soviet bloc --
at least those outside Central Europe -- need figureheads who can, to put it
colorfully, sip oolong tea from the finest china while being adept, also, at
breaking bread with gypsies or sharing a schnapps with a rural farmer or
coal miner. These societies need figureheads, splendid personages who
inspire confidence and respect, who transcend their ugly postwar histories
and help foster the virtues of political moderation and tolerance.
I wager that Bulgaria will have a king by its next parliamentary elections.
That king, for sure, will be Simeon II.
---
Mr. Varadarajan is deputy editorial features editor of The Wall Street
Journal. His column will appear Fridays in May.

X. THE PURELY PERSONAL ESSAY

April 19, 1998, Sunday
The New York Times Sunday Magazine
Lives; The Spoilers
By Tunku Varadarajan
It was late April last year, and I had just arrived in New York. Not yet in
possession of an apartment, I was billeted by my employers at the Paramount
Hotel, near the border of one of Manhattan's seamier districts. One night,
fed up with work, but with no friends as yet in this vast, strange city, I
slipped on my jeans and went to a dive on nearby Eighth Avenue in search of
a Scotch.
As I sipped through the ice, crunching on cold shards, a woman approached
me, her caked face as crumpled as the linen jacket on my back. On
''aging-hooker alert,'' I took care not to smile at her and reached
instinctively for a newspaper on the bar in which to bury my head.

The woman sat next to me, eyed the cigarette smoldering in my ashtray and
asked for a light. Irritated, though schooled enough not to show it, I lit
her cigarette. ''Thanks, honey,'' she purred through scratched lungs.
''That's O.K.,'' I responded without warmth. ''You're sweet,'' she
persisted. ''From around here?'' ''No,'' I said. ''I'm from India.''
''In-dee-ya. You're a cabdriver, right?''
Her eyes were shining from the belief that she had hit the bull's-eye. It
was a rough bar and a fair sort of assumption to make. ''That's absolutely
right,'' I replied, draining my glass. ''That was clever of you! But I've
got to rush. Can't leave that meter idle for too long.'' I allowed myself a
smile, paid the bartender to get her a drink and fled. Into a taxi. Driven
by an Indian.
Some weeks later, I had dinner at the home of an acquaintance from Delhi. He
had made it on Wall Street, and his wife's face had the glow of a woman
whose husband was on a pinnacle. They were superbly dressed, and very rich.
They had two children, cared for by a Guyanese nanny.
As expected, the evening was excruciating. He was brimming with his own
importance. She -- her Indian, convent-educated accent now flavored with
American -- was full of his importance, too. They were part of a creamy
layer. The elite in the elite city of the elite country. ''You know, yaar,''
he said, ''these Americans know what we're worth. They know that we Indians
are the best.''
He explained that the picture Americans had of the Indians living in the
United States was of the professional -- ''doctor, accountant, broker,
engineer, scientist, professor, writer...not like in England, where they
think you're a bloody factory worker.'' He also pointed out that Indians
earned more in America than any other ethnic or racial group, ''the whites
included.'' I later found that he was almost right: only Russians have a
median household income ($45,778) higher than the Indians here ($44,696).
There were other couples there that night. All Indian, all rich, all
professionals. After a few drinks, they began to hold forth on the things
they did not like about America. Blacks topped the list -- ''criminals, they
ruin this country.'' Hispanics weren't far behind -- ''why don't they damn
well learn English?'' One woman told me, as if flaunting a medal, ''You
know, Tunku, we're really thought of as whites here.''
At this, my host, reversing direction, interjected with passion: ''Not for
long. Soon they'll think we're all cabdrivers.'' A murmur went up as a score
of worried minds met at once over a shared predicament. ''That's true, you
know,'' one man said. ''I don't have any figures, but I bet you that half
the yellow cabs in New York are driven by people from the Indian
subcontinent. It really bugs me, that.'' These cabbies were ''lowering the
tone.'' They were ''spoiling things for us.'' They were ''ruining our
image'' in America. ''In just five years they've undone all the good work.
These uncouth chaps, straight out of Punjab, can't even speak proper English
-- can't even drive. I don't know how they got here. Must be through Mexico
or something. I don't know why they let them in.''
On my way to work some days later, I hailed a taxi. The driver was Indian.
It was his first day, and I was his first passenger. He drove me from Murray
Hill to Sixth Avenue, where I work, near 47th Street. Once there, he would
not take my money. ''You're my first. There is this rule. My friends told
me. We don't take money from the first.''
I wished him luck as I got out, pausing on the sidewalk as he pulled away.
He wouldn't take my money, I mused to myself, savoring his superstitions and
his need to appease the taxi driver's gods. Here was an Indian I understood.
He was adrift in New York, fearful of his good fortune.

---

As a bonus, here is an excerpt from an August 1997 talk that Varadarajan gave to SAJA, when he was still at The Times (you can see more photos and background on him in these now defunct pages here and here):

The Daily Grind of a British Newspaper Correspondent
By Tunku Varadarajan (the types of stories he does regularly, with actual headlines)

Serious American news: "Jury says implant firm hid risks"

Non-serious American news: "Bistro mother and baby go home"

British trash abroad: "Woman who ran off with son's friend is arrested"

Posh Brits abroad: "Princess's million-dollar dresses"

Americans are nuts: "Girlfriend of Ellen 'first-time lesbian' "

...but they can be clever, too: "Updike launches a short story into cyberspace"

Froth for anxious news editor on a slow news day: "Millie, First Dog in Geoge Bush's White House, dies"

A story that's of no interest to anyone but me, what the heck, I am the correspondent here: "America's lost tribe uses Internet to find past"

Lightish feature: "Chelsea snubs Ivy League"

Heavyish Op-ed: "The lawman who moulded America"

Ripping off the local press (shamelessly): "Royalty builds a new empire in Manhattan"

Crashingly tedious, but must do: "Bell-Nynex merger cleared"

Even in this barren, cricketless land, there's sport: "Yen for Yankees sees rookie strike it rich"

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Post your comments below.

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