Rahul Gandhi's frank and open speech at the University of California, Berkeley, on September 11 seemed to give the BJP heartburn. Pic courtesy YouTube

I've changed my mind about Rahul Gandhi. The Congress vice-president was often in the crosshairs of my writing during the past decade. He publicly threatened a lawsuit against me for a story I did that questioned his 1994 Cambridge MPhil. I published his marksheet and he countered with his degree, signed 2004. His mom Sonia is also wary of me. Shortly after the 2008 Mumbai attack, I wrote a satirical column about the way the then Home Minister Shivraj Patil kept changing his clothes while visiting scenes of the attack; I said he wanted to impress his party president with his sartorial charm. They threatened another lawsuit. I repeatedly referred to Rahul as a 'princeling', a term used for Chinese Communist Party brats.