Hell hath no fury like a Nobel Laureate scorned and Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul is no exception.
The world-famous and Trinidad-born 78-year-old writer, considered one of the masters of English writing, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001. He was feted and applauded across the globe, especially in India -- his ancestral home -- where there was considerable satisfaction that another exceptional Indian after Rabindranath Tagore had finally won the coveted award.
Despite the acclaim and praise that continue to be showered upon him, Sir Vidia is not a happy man. For the last few months, he has been quietly fuming in the privacy of his Wiltshire home in the heart of the English countryside. The object of his fury and the reason for his despair is the lack of civility with which the Indian High Commission in London has treated him and his wife.
Three months ago, Naipaul’s wife Lady Nadira travelled from Wiltshire to London to ask the Indian High Commission -- India House - as to how her elderly husband could apply for a Person of Indian Origin card that would entitle him to travel visa-free to India and, perhaps, even settle down there in his last years. Previous High Commissioners had all encouraged him to think along these lines.
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