My maternal grandfather was a politician, an old school politician; he came up the ranks, from the ICS to become Home Secretary and finally the Finance Minister in Morarji Desai’s short lived 1977-1979 government. He was HM Patel.

For me the fascination with Indian politicians, especially those in the Opposition began in 1975. Indira Gandhi, the big bad villain of that chapter in Indian history, had bunged a bunch of rebel political leaders into jail, habeas corpus had been suspended, a state of Emergency was declared, the press had been muzzled, there was a huge common enemy, who had to be vanquished—at the time there was no singular party capable of taking on the Indian National Congress. But there was a true cast of colourful characters, from many splinter political parties—my grandad’s own Swatantra Party, Raj Narain’s Socialist Party, Jagjivan Ram and HN Bahuguna from Congress for Democracy, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani from the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, Parkash Singh Badal and his Akali Dal, there were some breakways from the Congress like George Fernandes and Chandra Shekhar.