What is the one book that all Indian teenagers should read?
When he was asked this question on Friday at The Telegraph Online Edugraph 18 Under 18 Awards event on Friday in Kolkata, Dr Shashi Tharoor, writer, lawmaker and the only man who can make floccinaucinihilipilification trend on social media, replied that it would be the Mahabharat.
Tharoor was the chief guest at The Telegraph Online Edugraph 18 Under 18 Awards 2025 presented by EIILM Kolkata, powered by UEM Kolkata, and co-powered by Techno India University.
“I think the Mahabharat is a good one. While the Ramayan is a religious epic, the Mahabharat, despite having the Bhagavad Gita within it, is still a more secular epic which provides a larger picture of Indian culture and civilisation,” he said.
The Mahabharat is filled with the desires and foibles of men and everyone has feet of clay, he pointed out. He recommended reading as long a version of the epic as possible, recommending P. Lal’s transcreation.
Grilling Tharoor on stage at the awards event – which honoured 18 extraordinary young school-going achievers from across eastern India – was the actress Swastika Mukherjee.
Swastika, who steered the conversation with signature aplomb, began with a rapid-fire round.
Asked about a word he wishes more people used, Tharoor cited defenestrate.
“Defenestrate means literally to throw out of the window. It can be used metaphorically to reject something or discard something or someone. I feel that is a word I use a lot and people should start using it,” Tharoor said as the packed auditorium of the South City International School listened with rapt attention.
Swastika also asked Tharoor how he became a published author when he was just 10 years old and how he inculcated his love for reading.
“I suffered from asthma,” Tharoor revealed. “When I was growing up, we didn’t have the inhalers or nebulisers that are available now. Because of my condition I couldn’t get out and play with friends, so I took comfort in books. It started with reading, and I read so much that I had finished all the books available to me. That is when I turned to writing. I have to thank my father for supporting that from a very early age because that made all the difference.”
What is the one thing Tharoor would frown at today’s teenagers about? “I love how energetic and open they are to worldviews,” he replied. “The only thing I would frown on is vocabulary; I don’t understand why you have to shorten words which are already short, why do you need to abridge charisma into rizz?”
Was he a naughty kid in his days at St Xavier’s School, Calcutta? Did he bunk classes to go to Flury’s?
“No, unfortunately I was a very boring kid,” the MP from Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala replied. “I was a good student and the teacher’s pet and I never bunked class. We did go to Flury’s and Firpo’s, not during classes, and there was a debate as to where the better cake was."
Asked how much opportunity he sees for the youth and how things have changed for the young people in India, Tharoor responded, “The young have a lot more opportunities than we did, which is a good thing. We are becoming a little less rigid in our academic system, which allows people to do more interdisciplinary work. For example, in the New Education Policy, you can have a degree in history with a minor in physics, which I think is incredible.”
What does Shashi Tharoor feel about attention spans getting shorter and youngsters moving more into technology and further away from books?
“I find that youngsters are reading shorter texts, more trivial text, more superficial texts rather than the kind of in-depth engagement with complex text that is available. As an author I have had to change my style. When I wrote the biographies of Nehru and Ambedkar they were short, but even a 200 page biography is sometimes too long for people,” he said.
“My next book, which is coming out next month, is a short and concise commentary on the Constitution. It’s 101 pages of text. Now, 101 pages is not enough, any serious scholar will tell you, to do justice to our Constitution. But the publishers are telling me that this is all people will read; any longer and the book won’t sell. ”
Tharoor used the awards event forum to pass on a message to youngsters.
“Make sure there is meaning and purpose to your life,” he urged. “I think most young people understand the importance of that because ultimately the one thing that I really despise – and it’s not just for the young, it’s often for the old – is this whole notion of timepass without purpose.
“In my mind, one of the regrets in my life has been that I’ve not had enough minutes in the day to do all that I want. So, I think using time meaningfully is crucial because once it’s gone you’ll never get it back.”
Swastika also asked Tharoor which actor he would like to play him in a biopic. He quipped that he might have “bouts of immodesty” but he was “not vain enough” to think he deserved a biopic.
But he also pointed out that in the erstwhile Sunday magazine’s Separated at Birth feature, Chandrachur Singh had been featured as someone who could be Tharoor’s doppelganger.
And when Swastika asked Tharoor which OTT shows he had seen and enjoyed, he replied that he never finds the time to watch such shows in their entirety but had seen a few episodes of Delhi Crime.