11 October,2026 08:02 AM IST | Mumbai | Fiona Fernandez
Nirupama Rao with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2012. Rao was Ambassador to the United States at the time. Pics Courtesy/Nirupama Rao
Tell us about your experiences as a jury member for the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize 2026.
It has been an absorbing commitment, and a welcome reminder of the many ways there are to tell the history of modern India. The books have taken me through constitutional precepts, political lives, migration, borders and the experience of ordinary people living through decisions made far beyond them. As a former diplomat, I am accustomed to reading the official record. Some of the most rewarding writing asks what that record leaves out, or show how a familiar event looks when viewed from another region, community, or household.
I have especially savoured encountering work that combines patient research with the confidence to tell a compelling story. A prize jury also teaches you to read more attentively. A book may unsettle your assumptions without necessarily persuading you of every conclusion, and the discussion with fellow jurors makes you return to the text and think again. That seems to me a fitting way to honour Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, whose mind was like an ocean, and whose own life crossed so many of the boundaries we tend to place between politics, culture and public service.
What life lessons did the Foreign Service teach you?
To listen before drawing conclusions. That sounds simple, but diplomacy often places you amid strong convictions, partial information and pressure to respond at once. You learn to ask what the other person apprehends, what they desire to preserve, and what history they believe they are living through. Understanding their position does not require you to surrender your own.
The Service also taught me the value of preparation and the limits of certainty. Countries are more complicated than the neat descriptions we give them, and relationships rarely move in a straight line. I learned to stay curious, to treat people with respect whatever their rank, and to remember that words can have consequences well beyond the room in which they are spoken. Above all, I came to believe that a country represents itself through the quality of its judgment as much as through the force of its arguments.
How did music become a key part of your life?
Music has been a companion through much of my life. I sing, and I know from performing how much feeling can be carried in a phrase that no spoken explanation quite captures. After I left the Foreign Service, I had more room to give that part of me sustained attention. Music also provided a way to carry forward something I cared deeply about as a diplomat: Bringing people into contact across borders.
My husband Sudhakar and I founded the South Asian Symphony Foundation in 2018. The orchestra brings musicians from across our region together to rehearse, listen and make something none could make alone. I do not imagine a concert can resolve a political dispute. But I have watched musicians arrive with different histories and leave with a shared experience, and that matters. The work has grown to include young musicians and our Silver Songbirds programme for older singers. It gives me enormous pleasure to see people find their place and fellowship in an ensemble, sometimes for the first time.
What can readers expect from your next book?
My book is about India's image in the world: the stories we tell about ourselves, the images others form of us, and the space between the two.
A diplomat spends a great deal of time in that space. I want to explore how a country as varied and inventive as India can make itself understood without reducing itself to a slogan. It is a work in progress, so I shall leave the rest for
the book.
"A dear memory is the South Asian Symphony Orchestra's debut at the NCPA in April 2019. We had spent so long imagining an orchestra that could bring together musicians from across South Asia. Hearing it come to life on a Mumbai stage was deeply moving. Mumbai is a wonderful city for such a beginning: It has long made room for people and ideas arriving from elsewhere, and it brings a generous curiosity to the arts.
On my next visit, I would like to attend a concert, as a member of the audience, browse a bookshop without looking at the clock, and take a long walk by the sea."
. âWhat are you reading?
I've just finished Qiu Xiaolong's Inspector Chen and the Private Kitchen Murder. I've long enjoyed how his mysteries evoke the nooks and crannies of Shanghai while giving you a glimpse of the Party politics and social change beneath the surface.
. âAn Indian writer who impressed you?
Jhumpa Lahiri remains an all-time favourite. Migration, a topic she tackles with such sensitivity and detail, especially fascinates me.
. âA musician you'd love to perform a duet with?
Joan Baez. She was my childhood icon and idol. Her voice and the courage that sings with it have stayed with me all my life.
