He's the sort of man who goes out into the street for a closer look at a violent revolution, instead of ducking under the nearest bed. No wonder the Chinese authorities in 1968 picked on K Reghunath and another Indian diplomat, to set an example for other diplomats who might become 'overly inquisitive'. The two young men were beaten up in Beijing, as were some British diplomats.
Now all set to become foreign secretary in July, Reghunath has more to him than meets the eye. With humour, charm and his easy command over Tamil, French, Sanskrit, German, Hindi, Russian and Mandarin, he can mix as easily with kings as with the hoi polloi. He is able to make good friends even among hostile peoples, says one of his close friends, talking about how he coped with the trauma of Beijing and the burning of the Indian High Commission's library in Dhaka when he was high commissioner there.
The son of a Tamil Brahmin ICS officer, Reghunath grew up in Bihar, UP, Orissa and Delhi before graduating from the Madras Christian College. Cosmopolitan to the core, he married a Lepcha woman from Sikkim whom he had met in Hong Kong in 1962, where she was travelling. At the time the young IFS probationer was studying Mandarin. As his wife puts it, It's just that our lives took us in different directions. They kept in touch, finally getting married in 1975.
