by Karan Thapar
When eventually it was discovered that this was Patrick’s handiwork, a livid headmaster decided to rusticate him and summoned Adrienne Corri to take him home. But that never happened. Using all the charm at her command—and she had pots of it—Adrienne not only talked Mr Drayson out of his decision but, more importantly for Patrick and me, into granting permission for her to take us out to lunch. As she put it: ‘Now that I’m here and we’ve sorted this out, surely I can take the two boys out for a bite before I head back home?’ Mr Drayson didn’t have the heart to say no!
I grew to love Stowe. The enchantment of the estate was the first attraction. You could walk around for hours, visiting the quaint but wonderful monuments that dotted the landscape, passing sheep gambolling on the other side of a vast eight-acre lake, then on towards rarely visited and now, sadly, crumbling castles on distant, forgotten ridges. Away from the school yet surrounding it, this was another world. Every evening before supper it became my escape. I did a lot of growing up during these solitary walks.
The other great influence was the school’s senior tutor, Brian Stephan, a puce-faced, crusty and taciturn man, whom many found difficult to relate to. In my case he became a mentor.
Mr Stephan taught me English literature and the constant challenge of trying to impress him seemed to bring out the best in me. He spoke very little, usually in monosyllables and always softly. So his praise meant a lot, assuming you could hear it! He encouraged me to sit for the Oxbridge entrance exam during the fourth term of my A-levels and not wait till I had finished them, as most students would. It was a daunting task, but he encouraged me to take it on.
That I got into Cambridge was perhaps entirely because of Brian Stephan. I owe him a huge debt of gratitude. However, luck played an almost equally important part. Even today, more than forty years later, I can hardly believe what happened at my interview. It took place on a cold, grey, blustery autumn afternoon in 1973. I can vividly recall it.
The porters at Pembroke College directed me to the room where I was expected. The door was ajar. Was that an invitation to walk in or simply carelessness? Unsure, I knocked. A loud but distant voice responded, ‘Come in.’
I entered a square room lined with bookshelves up to the ceiling. The curtains were drawn and the lights were not bright. The rich smell of cigar smoke hung in the air. It was a comfortable, well-used room; but it was empty.
‘I’m in the bath.’ It was the same voice. ‘Sit down and amuse yourself. I’ll join you shortly.’
That was how Michael Posner, the man who was going to interview me and who would later become my tutor, introduced himself. I would learn more of his eccentric ways in the years to come, but upon this first encounter I was flummoxed. I had come prepared for a daunting interview. Although anxious, eager and excited, I was ready for almost anything—but not this.
At the age of seventeen, I wasn’t sure what to do. I wanted to behave like an adult, but what would that amount to? I reached for a book and, standing by an old brass lamp, glanced at its pages. I can’t remember its name but it was something to do with the Indian economy.
‘Ah, there you are.’
I turned to find Mr Posner bearing down on me. He was a large man with an equally generous smile. He thumped my shoulder and more or less simultaneously pushed me into a large armchair. Then he sat down in another in front of me.
‘What’s that?’
Mr Posner reached for the book I had just put down. He seemed to know it.
‘Well, young man, you want to come up to Pembroke, do you?’
‘Yes, Mr Posner.’ What else could I have said? The answer should have been obvious.
‘In that case, what can you tell me about the Indian economy?’
It was a trick. Worse, I had created the opening for it by choosing that particular book. I wished I had picked up a magazine or a newspaper instead. Now I had to talk about a subject of which I was completely ignorant.
Inwardly I panicked, but outwardly I started to gabble. It was the only way of covering up. I must have spoken for three minutes or more.
‘Hmmm.’ The sound was enough to stop my flow. Posner was staring at the documents in his hand. I guessed that they must be part of my application form.
‘Not knowing the subject doesn’t seem to be a handicap for you!’
Ouch! Yet there was a hint of a smile and his eyes were gleaming. That was the first time I saw Posner embarrass and applaud in the same sentence. It was his trademark style. But on that dreary October afternoon, this was also the first suggestion that Pembroke would accept me. To this day I’m convinced that it was my ability to carry on speaking glibly even when I was not sure of what I was actually trying to say that did the trick. Incidentally, this has stood me in good stead ever since.
2
THE CAMBRIDGE UNION SOCIETY, AND MEETING BENAZIR
I
arrived in Cambridge on an unusually warm and sunny October day. It’s what the British call an Indian summer. This bright start was an accurate harbinger of what was to follow. My three years at Cambridge, supposedly studying economics and political philosophy, were exhilarating.
To begin with, I had no idea of what to expect. Although several cousins and uncles had been at the university and shared their stories, for me, each day was new and full of pleasant surprises. Looking back, this was probably because I was at an age when I was beginning to understand myself and realize what I was capable of.
More than academics, my interests and ambition were focused on the Cambridge Union Society. Unlike other universities, at Oxford and Cambridge the Union, though a student body, is not the students’ union. It’s the university’s debating society and its membership is far bigger and more sought after.
The Cambridge Union Society was founded in 1815, almost a decade before its Oxford counterpart. It has a chamber similar to the House of Commons and although by the 1970s white tie had given way to black, Union debates still felt like special occasions. To be president of the Union was—and still is—considered a commendable achievement. Several British prime ministers won their political spurs as presidents of one or the other Union. But the Cambridge Union can also boast of names that are more easily recognized internationally, such as the economist John Maynard Keynes; Arianna Huffington née Stassinopoulos, the co-founder of Huffington Post; and the bestselling author Robert Harris.
If I recall correctly, three Indians had been elected to the presidency of the Cambridge Union before me. One of them was the lawyer, diplomat and governor Shanti Swaroop Dhavan. Another was his son Rajeev. They were, possibly, the first father-son combination to make it to the top. The third was the former minister Mohan Kumaramangalam. As an undergraduate, Jawaharlal Nehru was a member but no more. As prime minister, he became one of the few world leaders to be accorded honorary membership.
My career at the Union was the result of a fortuitous accident. It happened when, on my first day at Pembroke, still unsure and uncertain of my new surroundings, I met someone who went on to become one of my closest friends. His name was Satish Agarwal or, as he used to pronounce it with the Midlands accent he had picked up in Nottingham, Saytish Uggerwall. Born in Moga, in rural Punjab, Satish had grown up and been schooled in the English Midlands. Despite his appearance, he belonged more to Robin Hood’s Nottingham than the Punjab his parents had left behind.
We took to each other immediately and when he told me he had just joined the Union, I decided that I would too. I was literally being a copycat; I had no better reason than that.
I got my break at the Union during the annual Freshmen’s Debating Competition. The motion was ‘This House prefers Marks & Spencer to Spencer and Marx’. I was given the daunting task of opposing it. Although Edward Mercer, a tall, freckled, chestnut-haired undergraduate from Trinity, came first, and I only second, to my surprise I ended up attracting more attention.
My career at the Union got an initial boost and succeeded because of two serendipitous misunderstandings and o
ne undeniable fact that stood me in good stead. I used to joke about this at the time, but the more I reflect on it, the more I suspect it is also the truth.
First, my name ‘Karan’ led most undergraduates to assume it was a misspelling of the female Christian name ‘Karen’. So, many who didn’t know me thought that I was a girl! They felt it would be fun to vote for one.
The second misunderstanding arose out of my manner and, possibly, from the obvious interest I took in my sartorial appearance. This led several to believe that I was fey. Some even went the whole hog and thought that I was gay! Either way, rather than put people off, this made me stand out, which in turn attracted attention and, from some, support.
The undeniable fact I benefited from is that I look Indian. ‘Wogs’ in those days were still a bit of an oddity at the Union. Perhaps they still are. But in the mid-1970s, to find one climbing the ladder was so uncommon that it felt unique. For this reason alone, I seemed a cause worth supporting!
After three consecutive terms on the Standing Committee, a defeat in my first bid for secretary but success in the second, I was unopposed for vice-president and thereafter for the presidency. So, in the Lent Term of 1977, I became president of the Union. At twenty-one, this was an intoxicating experience.
Even though my final Tripos exams were just months away and I had only a faltering grasp on my subject, political philosophy, for the duration of my presidency, nothing mattered more than the Union. Looking back after forty years, which is ample time to put things in perspective and shed my juvenile euphoria, two events—and one sparkling political guest—stand out.
The first, almost at the start of my presidential term, was one of the most unusual events the Union has ever staged—a Ravi Shankar concert in King’s College Chapel.
On a cold, snowy January night, without any heating in the chapel (because the Union couldn’t afford to pay for it), Ravi Shankar performed in front of over a thousand people. Even though he sat on a platform six inches above the chapel’s stone floor, he was still freezing. This meant that he had to play vigorously just to keep himself warm. The energy that produced added unbelievably to his performance. It started at 8 p.m. and carried on well past midnight.
Afterwards, we took Ravi Shankar, Allah Rakha—the renowned tabla player accompanying him—and the tanpura player Pradyot Sen to the Union for supper. After the chilly chapel, they were hoping for something hot and were horrified by the spartan, cold repast they were offered. None more so than Allah Rakha, who found sausages mixed in with the crumb-fried chicken wings.
‘Don’t you know I’m Muslim?’ he thundered.
‘I’m really sorry,’ I stammered. ‘I forgot about that.’
‘How could you? With a name like Allah Rakha how could you have forgotten that I’m Muslim?’
He had a fair point. So absorbed had I been in arranging the finances, publicity and audience to ensure that the concert would be a success, I’d completely overlooked the fact that the artistes would want a proper meal before they headed back to London, and that one of them was obviously Muslim. I’m afraid my lack of attention to detail left them starving!
The second event that had me cock-a-hoop was more conventional—it was a debate. But it was the motion I concocted that truly pleased me. This was for the funny debate of term. Each term the Union has one. However, as I realized over the years, finding a genuinely witty motion becomes increasingly difficult. Which was why I was so proud of mine: ‘A drink before and a cigarette after are three of the best things in life!’ It was enough to get the speakers going. We had a hilarious time as people sought to identify the missing third element. The next day’s Times Diary, written by the then famous ‘PH simplyguessverk’—the idiosyncratic generic name used by the paper’s diarist—was entirely devoted to a lengthy account of the night.
The guest I will never forget was the Liberal Party leader of the time, Jeremy Thorpe. He accepted my invitation to propose the motion ‘Politics is an honourable profession’ in December, several weeks before the start of the Lent term. However, by the time the date arrived, he was caught in the middle of a dreadful controversy that threatened his career. Thorpe had been accused of attempting to murder his alleged homosexual lover and the grim details surrounding this episode, as well as the growing question mark about his future, dominated the news.
I expected Thorpe to cancel. Fortunately, he saw this as an opportunity to prove that he was undeterred and determined to carry on. So he turned up. At the time there weren’t any paparazzi, but the behaviour of the press was no different. Hundreds of journalists, cameramen and photographers crowded the platform at Cambridge’s little railway station as the train carrying Thorpe arrived. From that moment, I knew that this debate would be at the top of the night’s news bulletins and on the next morning’s front pages. Thorpe’s predicament gave the Union the sort of publicity it yearned for.
I thought that the hullaballoo would continue all night and, indeed, well into the next morning, because Thorpe had chosen to stay overnight in Cambridge. But to my surprise, the media throng melted away as soon as the debate was over. No doubt this was because Jeremy Thorpe did not drop his guard. The media had been hoping that he would wilt, perhaps even break down, but nothing of the sort happened. Instead, his fortitude in the face of adversity put him into a ridiculously good mood. So after the debate, around 11 p.m., I invited him to my digs for a drink. He readily accepted and soon we were settled in my ground-floor room on Pembridge Street, opposite Pembroke College, swigging sherry, because that’s all I had to offer.
Several friends who lived in the same building joined us. The spontaneous group included my sister Kiran and brother-in-law Irwin, who were visiting for the occasion. This gave Jeremy Thorpe the audience he needed and, therefore, he played to the gallery. All politicians are showmen and Thorpe was one of the best. Controversy had forced him to restrain himself but now, in convivial company and after several glasses of Tio Pepe, he was happy to reveal his normal jovial self.
As the clock struck 1, Thorpe started to perform padmasana. Once that was over he regaled us with stories, truthful if indiscreet, about all his opponents at the House of Commons. Each was more revealing than the last.
Hacks always want to be close to politicians and this was a God-given opportunity, more than I could have hoped for or even imagined. By the time Thorpe decided to call it a night, he left behind a room full of admirers. I’m convinced every one of them still has a soft corner for him though, shortly thereafter, his career ended in disgrace and he lived the rest of his life in quiet retirement.
It was because of the Union that I got to know, and became close friends with, Benazir Bhutto. Although we became presidents of the Cambridge and Oxford Unions at the same time (the Lent Term of 1977, which at Oxford is known as the Hilary Term), our first meeting had happened a few months earlier. At the time she was the treasurer of the Oxford Union and I was the vice-president at Cambridge, where she had come to propose the motion ‘This house would have sex before marriage’. For an aspiring Pakistani politician, this was dangerous territory to tread on, but at the time it just felt like a fun debate.
I remember that night’s events as if they had happened yesterday. Benzair was wearing a sea-green chiffon Mukaish saree. Those days, Pakistanis had no inhibitions in wearing sarees. She also had short, dark-brown hair and glasses perched on her hooked nose.
Benazir was in full flow at the despatch box when I pressed the president’s bell. It was a breach of Cambridge Union protocol because the bell is only for the president to use and no one else. Unaware of this, she turned and looked at me expectantly.
‘I see, madam, that you’re proposing sex before marriage. Would you care to practise what you preach?’ It was sophomore humour, but it had everyone in fits of laughter and I was, consequently, rather pleased with my intervention.
Cleverly, Benazir waited for the laughter to subside. Then she ostentatiously whipped off her glasses, screwed up her nose
and responded: ‘Certainly, but not with you!’ She got an even bigger round of applause.
Strange as it may seem, this introduction led to a firm and lasting friendship. Benazir was staying at the Garden House Hotel, not far from Pembroke, so after the debate we walked back together. I invited her to my rooms for a cup of coffee before escorting her to the hotel and she agreed.
At the time, Benazir was a spontaneous and fun person, though extremely conscious of whose daughter she was and the fact that her having an Indian friend could be misunderstood or, at least, misrepresented in Pakistan. That meant that there was always a touch of tension in our friendship.
Weeks later, when we were both presidents of our Unions, we invited each other to participate in debates. She returned to Cambridge to oppose the motion ‘That art is elitist—or it is nothing’. Yehudi Menuhin, Clive James and Arianna Stassinopoulos were some of the other speakers on that occasion.
In turn, Benazir invited me for her presidential debate when she was retiring as president. These debates are occasions to praise the retiring officer and to laugh and have fun. So I thought of a little joke. I gifted her a book. ‘Given how popular you are,’ I said, ‘the book I’m giving you could well be your biography. It’s called All the President’s Men!’
‘Hmm…’ she responded. ‘If the rest of your speech is as bad as your start, perhaps I should ask you to stop and sit down!’
