" Little boxes, little boxes, little boxes all the same
There's a green one and a pink one,
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same..."

This man dislikes boxes, and much more being fitted into one of them; that's why he likes that Pete Seeger song, and quotes it often: " Little boxes, little boxes..." Mercifully, there is still a place Sanjaya Baru fits into - his office chair. His feet planted flush on the floor, his back ramrod, his person able to swivel around competing claimants to his attention - a backlit desktop, a pinging hand-held, and, on a solo seat diagonal to his line of sight, myself and a notebook that will presently fill out with the reasons why, at 62, Baru is looking for a job nobody will give him. "I have this room, and I am thankful, but this is an honorary chair, it gives the comfort and facilities of a lovely workspace but no salary."

We are on the upper floors of the Centre for Policy Research, a valued think tank in Delhi's vaunted diplomats' district - Chanakyapuri. Should you lean out the window and sniff hard enough, there's a good chance you'll catch a whiff of what's cooking in the Chinese embassy kitchens. This noon, the panes are shut on gently falling rain; Baru has a view of drenched leaves. Someone's rung in to congratulate him for calling out Raghuram Rajan's successor as RBI governor right. "I didn't understand what the fuss about letting Rajan go was all about," Baru says, palms splayed in the air. "Every Prime Minister gets his own RBI governor, even Chandrashekhar did in his short tenure. Here is a man whose term is closing, the government wants another man, what's wrong? And when I say this people will immediately start saying I have become a Modi- chamcha, I just don't understand, why should I need to be anybody's chamcha, for what?"

The "from Manmohan's man to Modi's man" jibe has come Baru's way so often and so long he doesn't bother taking notice anymore. The Accidental Prime Minister, Baru's memoir of his days as media adviser in Manmohan Singh's PMO, became a runaway bestseller but it wasn't as top pick of the non-fiction charts that it really made its name; it became known for how it became part of the Narendra Modi poll playbook. What the Modi backroom magpied off Baru's diverse discourse on decision-making in Manmohan's first term was a juicy stalk of politics - that Sonia Gandhi, and not Manmohan Singh, held real power through the UPA years, he was "subservient", she held the authority.

"The politically fatal combination of responsibility without power and governance without authority meant that Dr Singh was unable, even when he was aware, of checking corruption in his ministry without disturbing the political arrangement over which he nominally presided," Baru wrote. The book hit the stands as the battle for 2014 was gearing up; it became lethal fodder fed to Modi's campaign cannons.

Baru has consistently protested that was unintended consequence. "I have said this again and again that the timing of the book's release was entirely the publisher's decision, I had no role in it. My purpose was to write a book about those years, that's all I did. Who made what use of it is really no concern of mine."

What irks Baru to the day is that many belittled his work as an elaborate "job application" to Modi at a time it had become apparent he would ascend to premiership. "Well what am I to say to them," he laughs, his tone ringing with sardonic vindication, "Did the book fetch me a job with Modi? Would I still be looking for one? Truth to tell, the moment I say the slightest thing critical of Modi, and I have said those things, the same people turn to say, ah, Baru is saying this because Modi finally gave him nothing. Strange world!" For all the Manmohan critiquing his book did, the only photograph Baru has in his office is a large cellophaned shot of the former Prime Minister bathed in arc-lights by the main porch of Parliament, a bay of television boom microphones in front. Baru is in the picture himself, right behind Manmohan Singh. "That was Manmohan Singh's biggest moment as PM, the night he won the vote on the nuclear deal." The glint in Baru's eye is evidence he is proud to have played a role.

So who is the real Sanjaya Baru, where does he belong? "Nowhere," he says, pat, "Left, Right, Centre, nobody has a clue where to place me and that is how I want it to be. If I belong anywhere it is to a group of people who don't belong anywhere, refuse to be put in those Pete Seeger boxes. I reject this divide, either you are with me or against me. Why must I be this or that? We are not a bipolar people, I don't believe in these binaries of extremes, we are multi-polar, why should I accept a position defined by somebody else? Can I not think for myself? Can I not have a position of my own? I do say, yes, Modi is a popularly elected prime minister, give him a fair chance. Equally, I reserve the right to criticise him. I wrote no job application. Certainly nobody can say that of my next book."

It's on a man who once handed out key jobs, including one to Manmohan Singh, but who can't be doing that anymore: former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao. Baru is about to put out what he believes to be a work of correction in India's contemporary annals: 1991: How P.V. Narasimha Rao Made History, an account of one critical year and Rao's helmsmanship of transitions through it. (The book doesn't progress beyond 1991 and so the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid on Rao's watch isn't part of its scope.) It is probably also meant as tribute to a man Baru knew up close over a long period; his father was collector of Andhra Pradesh's Karimnagar district from where Rao made his election debut as MLA in 1957. "Narasimha Rao has been poorly treated by everybody, by the Congress, by politicians in Andhra, by history," Baru says, "I am hoping this book remedies a bit of that injustice. Here was a giant who got treated like some pygmy. I want to ask what did MGR do to deserve a Bharat Ratna, and why was Narasimha Rao not given it. I kept telling Manmohan Singh this, to award him the Bharat Ratna, and he kept saying yes, but he never had the courage to do it."

To begin and end the Narasimha Rao story with economic liberalisation - of which Manmohan Singh became the chief executor - is to lose the plot on the man, Baru says. "Narasimha Rao came to represent and effectively deal with humongous changes, not only at home but also abroad. Consider that here was the first non-Nehru-Gandhi Congress prime minister after Lal Bahadur Shastri. Consider that Rajiv Gandhi had just been assassinated, and the Congress did not return with a majority in the Lok Sabha. He becomes Prime Minister and Congress boss. He pushes economic reforms nobody had had the vision or the courage to, through a technocrat as his finance minister. He negotiates India's place in a radically changed world - the Soviet Union has collapsed, the Cold War is over, we have to anchor ourselves anew in this world. Narasimha Rao did all of that, don't forget, with a slender majority in the Lok Sabha and with a Congress quite divided on loyalties, still looking towards Sonia Gandhi. It was no mean thing to lead India through that time."

Coffee had arrived on a tray a while ago, piping and effervescent, just the indoor thing for a rainy day. But Baru is too taken with the subject of his work; the coffee's gone tepid while Rao has kept him animated. "You know the day he became Prime Minister, I had gone to see him at his Motilal Nehru Marg bungalow. A leading paper had carried the news that Sharad Pawar had staked his claim to become Prime Minister. When I arrived, Narasimha Rao was sitting quite by himself, wearing a lungi, drinking coffee, in an unreal sort of peace. I asked him what that story meant and he asked me to sit down. He said to me: 'Arre, it is a Bombay paper, the bureau chief is a Marathi, the reporter is a Marathi, what else will they say?' He was unbothered. Later that day, he was named PM, and when I tried to go see him on my way back from work, there was so much bandobust around that forlorn bungalow of the morning, I just couldn't get in. He was either very confident in the morning he was getting the job, or he couldn't care."

Baru, meantime, himself hasn't a job and he does seem to care that he doesn't. He doesn't easily fit but there are many roles he can fit into: economist, editor, academic, policy whiz, advisor, image-maker. And, at 62, he is still spry. When the appointment is over, he insists on arranging the crockery back onto the tray and delivering it out where it came from. Sanjaya Baru is what you might call a "situation vacant"; jobs may apply.

---

tetevitae

1974: Baru graduates from Hyderabad’s Nizam College
1986: Completes his PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University. Has an MA in economics (also from JNU) and an MPhil from the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram
1990: Asked to interview the then finance minister, Madhu Dandavate, for Doordarshan. Gets a taste of journalism. After 10 years in academics, turns a full-time journalist, serves in senior editorial positions in a string of national newspapers, earns a reputation as one of India’s best policy columnists
1998: Becomes member of India’s National Security Advisory Board Suggests Manmohan Singh’s name for the PM’s post in a column in 1999 and again in 2004
2004: Handpicked by Singh to be his media adviser, enjoys unfettered access to Singh. In 2008 Baru puts in his papers, opts for a two-year term at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at Singapore’s National University
2014: Publishes The Accidental Prime Minister, a runaway bestseller that gets looped in as material for Narendra Modi’s prime ministerial run 
Currently serves as honorary senior fellow at the Centre of Policy Research in Delhi