Beginning the session with reading out excerpts from one of the short stories in his new book Swimmer Among the Stars, the New York-based author seemed to be able to keep the audience hooked. "I started writing when I was eight. The story I wrote was called Sir Kanishk and the magic lamp. You can imagine what the plot was," laughed Tharoor who also said his family was responsible for him being a voracious reader. “My father is a writer; my mother was a professor of literature. We grew up with a lot of books. My twin brother is a journalist, my wife is a poet,” shared Tharoor, who was born in Singapore and grew up in Geneva and later, New York.

Kanishk Tharoor. Pic/Twitter