Profile
Born in London in 1956, to parents from Kerala, Mr. Tharoor is the eldest among three siblings. He spent the first 2 and ½ years of his life in London where his father, Mr. Chandran Tharoor worked for the Statesman. He had his schooling in Campion school, near Cooperage in Bombay and in St. Xavier's High school in Calcutta . He was sent to Delhi to attend college because in those days Calcutta was caught up in Naxalite violence. He has fond memories of Stephen's college where he did his BA honours in History. “It is a college that means a lot to me and gave me a marvelous education, almost more outside the classroom than in it! But also, it was a place where you really had a chance to develop yourself beyond academics” Tharoor made use of the exposure to the fullest extent and explored different vistas that interested him. He revived the Wodehouse Society which did everything from mimicry to practical joke competitions, invented the quiz club, participated in debates and ran the Winter festival. He also went into student politics and became elected president of the student union. Following his ambition for higher studies he went to the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University , United States . He earned two master's degrees and finished his PhD in 1978 at the age of 22. Later, he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters in International Affairs by the University Of Puget Sound, United States. Mr. Tharoor is an elected Fellow of the New York Institute of the Humanities and a member of the Advisory Board of the Indo-American Arts Council. Mr. Tharoor is also the author of six books, including the award-winning political satire, The Great Indian Novel (1989), and India : From Midnight to the Millennium (1997), a study of Indian politics, society and economic development after independence. He has written more than a thousand articles, open edited pieces and literary reviews in a wide range of publications on politics, culture, literature and almost everything under the sun. His books include Reasons of State (1982), a scholarly study of Indian foreign policy; The Great Indian Novel (1989), a political satire; The Five-Dollar Smile & Other Stories (1990); a second novel, Show Business (1992), which received a front-page accolade from The New York Times Book Review and was made into a motion picture titled Bollywood ; and India: From Midnight to the Millennium (1997), published on the 50th anniversary of India's independence. On August 13, 2001 Penguin Books ( India ) published Tharoor's latest novel Riot . The US edition was published by Arcade on September 28, 2001 . He is presently working in the UN Head Quarters and lives in New York He is married to writer Thilottama Tharoor and is the father of twin sons. A successful diplomat and a competent writer- one being and two alter egos. Which one is the real Shashi Tharoor? To this he replies “I see myself as a human being with a number of reactions to the world, some of which manifest themselves in my writing, some in my work. If I gave up one or the other, part of my psyche would wither on the vine……I do want to make a difference. At the moment, in the work I am doing, I believe I am making a difference and I would find it difficult to pursue something unless I felt that my pursuing it would make some difference to the world. That is simply the way I am. But it has been like that right from my childhood." That's what defines Shashi Tharoor in short.
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Suave, handsome, successful, competent, articulate- he is aptly called the face of the United Nations. Yes, we are talking about Mr. Shashi Tharoor, the youngest ever Under Secretary General to be appointed in the UN. At the age of 22 he joined the United Nations- one of the most prestigious organizations of the world- and the world witnessed his meteoric rise through the years. At the age of 48, he has a powerful lobby working in his favour to succeed Kofi Annan as the next UN Secretary General. 
