Deepak Lal, another of those wonderful Indian economists that India exported to the West, passed away on April 30. He was deeply suspicious of governments and politicians. That could have been one reason why he quit the foreign service in 1966 after just three years. It was an inspired decision. He would never have fitted into the bureaucracy, where brilliance is sneered at.
 
For five years, from about 2014, whenever he was in India, he and I sat in adjacent chairs at the weekly editorial meetings of this newspaper. He would shuffle in with his walking stick, mask and, in the summer, his straw hat. At first he would bring along his pipe but later on I think he gave up tobacco.
 
In these five years, I had just one grievance against him. As the designated supplier of samosas, I took around 2,500 samosas to the meeting, at the rate of 10 per meeting over about 250 weeks. He never took one, never, not once. In fairness, though, he didn&rsquo