What are your earliest memories of Calcutta?

My first Calcutta memories are of a very small boy being taken out for a ride every morning. Our pony was kept in stables at the top of Regents Park, Tollygunge. The syce used to lead the pony and my English Nanny used to walk alongside me. I rode with my eldest sister. Eventually there were six of us children all born in Tollygunge. We lived a very English life. Two of my sisters and I were sent to an English School in Darjeeling before we went back to Britain at the end of the war.

You are of the opinion that secularism is not suitable for a country like India. It’s disturbing and thought provoking at the same time. It contradicts our unity in diversity in the first place. Why can’t secularism find a place in a pluralistic and multicultural society like ours?

I am not of the opinion that secularism is unsuitable for India. A multi-religious society like India has to be secular in that all religions are given freedom and treated equally. I am of the opinion that many secularists in India behave as though secularism meant having no time for religion. One of the great traditions of India is its religious pluralism and this should be the basis for its secularism.

What is your idea of perfect plurality?

There can be no perfect secularism but we can and should strive for a society in which people of all religions and those with no religion are respected.

What is happening right and what is happening wrong in India now? How do you think this will change and affect us in the years to come?

In all countries some things are going well and some are not. In India today, I think the traditional culture of balancing material and spiritual needs is being undermined by western materialism. India has lost sight of Gandhi's thinking and his view that there is enough for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed. I think economic development is modelled too closely on the current dominant western form of market capitalism. India needs the freedom provided by market capitalism but the market needs direction. It cannot just be left to businessmen and women to dominate and that is what is happening.

What other aspects of India would you like to explore and discover?

I would love to have the chance to know more about Indian philosophy, to read more literature, and to have a deeper understanding of Indian music. I greatly enjoy listening to Indian classical music but I still feel more at home with the Western classical tradition I was brought up on. I would like to feel fully at home in both.

Do you know any languages other than English, Urdu, Hindi and Bengali? Would you like to learn any other language now?

I only know Hindi and English. I would like to know Bengali and Sanskrit. I would also like to know Hindi better!

How do you see the print and electronic media today? Do you think something is missing in Indian journalism today?

I think that commercial interests have far too much influence on the media in India and in the West. Media has become a business and this has downgraded the role of journalists. Advertising managers and the circulation department now influence what is published and what goes on air and have therefore taken over the role of the editor. The commercialization of the media makes it far harder for good journalists to get published.

Which are the books that have influenced you in life?

Obviously books like the authorized version of The Bible and The Book of Common Prayer - some of the finest English writing quite apart from their importance as religious texts - have profoundly influenced me. But as I said in my book India's Unending Journey, I have also been profoundly influenced by Radha Krishnan's short book The Hindu View of Life, and that led me on to The Bhagvad Gita. Gandhi’s writing has also influenced me greatly. Many other books have influenced me too but they are too numerous to list.

Have you ever thought of writing fiction? Would you be writing any fictional work in future? This brings me to the next question, are you working on any other book now? What else would you like to write on?

I have written wht I call faction. My book The Heart of India is true and semi-true stories of life in Eastern Uttar Pradesh disguised as fiction. I would very much like to write more stories like that but at present I haven't decided whether I will write another book at all or not.

And finally, how was your experience at Oxford Bookstore Kolkata?

I greatly enjoyed my discussion with readers in Oxford Bookstore Kolkata and was very happy to see such a friendly shop with such excellent facilities for browsing.

Sir Mark Tully was born in Calcutta, India in 1935. He was the Chief of Bureau, BBC, New Delhi for twenty-two years and is an acclaimed author and the regular presenter of the contemplative BBC Radio 4 programme Something Understood. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2005, and was knighted in the New Year Honours list in 2002. In addition to his distinguished broadcasting career, he has written several books about India, including No Full Stops in India, India in Slow Motion (with his partner and colleague Gillian Wright), and The Heart of India.

Share your views with us. Click here to write to us.

Rage, passion, inspiration and truth. That’s what a writer’s world is all about.
Click here to find out more about this one world of Salman Rushdie, Sidney Sheldon, Amitav Ghosh and others.

Interviewed by Satarupa Ray Designed by Subhadip Mukherjee