With the death of #AmarSingh I was reminded of my last meeting with him a decade ago (which I wrote about in The Liberals). For all his flaws, his analysis of what was happening in India was the most astute. He explained it through a story. His 'good friend' (Amar Singh always

referred to people as his good friend no matter how poisonous the story he was telling about them) Madhavrao Scindia, said Amar Singh, had taught him how to drink wine. How to twirl the drink in the glass, sniff it, taste it, before drinking it. Scindia, he said used to make,

fun of him. One day he was laughing at Amar Singh's accents, when Singh (according to himself) turned to him and said: "Mr. Scindia, your family has a five-hundred-year legacy. You had English nannies. I never went to a good school. I barely managed to put myself through

St. Xavier's College, Calcutta. I hardly knew English till I joined college. Whatever I am is because of those three years in college. If I had your background, I would have become the prime minister of India!" What is the basic problem with the old elite in India, Singh asked me

and then proceeded to answer the question himself, "It is their feudal mindset when you take your subjects for granted. I used to know these old rajas. They used to address each other by the name of their state. So one might call the other and say, "Hello Jodhpur? This is Bikaner

speaking. Have you heard what has happened to Rampur? They were their states. This is that kind of mindset." It is the most succinct explanation of what changed in India in the following decade after my conversation with him, in many ways.