Mani Shankar Aiyar: The veteran Congressman is down but not out

Over lamb, prawns and noodles, Anjali Puri finds the veteran Congressman uncharacteristically rattled but far from abject

Mani Shankar Aiyar walks into the House of Ming at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Delhi, not in his usual kurta pyjama but in Delhi Gymkhana Club chic — moss green tweed jacket daringly mismatched with a purple striped tie and a mauve shirt, and a blue pocket square. The veteran Congressman, who hit the headlines last month for all the wrong reasons, looks jaunty — and there are flashes of repartee when, for example, he tells a waiter enquiring about food restrictions, “I have none except those imposed by (Narendra) Modi.”

Yet on this winter afternoon in the dying