Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire – Ranjana Sengupta, India International Centre
The Proustian self-introspection.
[By The Delhi Proustians]
The Proust Questionnaire represents a form of interview that owes its structure to answers given by French novelist Marcel Proust, the author of In Search of Lost Time, at two birthday parties that he attended at ages 13 and 20 in the late 19th century.
In early 2013, The Delhi Proustians started taking Les confidences de salon (Drawing room confessions) around the city to explore people’s lives, thoughts, values and experiences. The series involves interviews across Delhi and is conducted by writers Manika Dhama and Mayank Austen Soofi.
For the seventeenth installment of Delhi’s Proust Questionnaire, Ranjana Sengupta, author of Delhi Metropolitan: The Making of an Unlikely City, made confessions to Mayank in the lawns of India International Centre.
Your favorite virtue or the principal aspect of your personality
Favourite virtue is tolerance; principal aspect too is tolerance, hopefully
Your favorite qualities in a man
Intelligence, humour, honesty
Your favorite qualities in a woman
Intelligence, humour, honesty
Your chief characteristic
Hard to say
What do you appreciate the most in your friends?
Understanding, loyalty
Your main fault
It varies, but I’d say basically an inability to believe in certainties
Your favorite occupation
Reading
Your idea of happiness
Being with family, friends; travelling. Ideally, both
Your idea of misery or what would be your greatest misfortune?
Isolation, boredom
If not yourself, who would you be?
I’ll stick to being me
Where would you like to live?
Delhi
Your favourite colour and flower
Blue. Narcissus
Your favorite bird
Flamingo
Your favorite prose authors
Amitav Ghosh, Alain de Botton, Sheila Dhar, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Jawaharlal Nehru
Your favorite poets
Ted Hughes, Siegfried Sasson, Vikram Seth, TS Eliot
Your favorite heroes in fiction
Salim Sinai, Will Ladislaw, Captain Haddock
Your favorite heroines in fiction
Anne Eliot, Charulata
Your favorite composers
Johann Sebastian Bach, AR Rahman
Your favorite painters
Vermeer, Shamshad Husain, Bill Lowry
Your heroes/heroines in real life
Dara Shikoh, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
What characters in history do you most dislike?
Too many to call
Your heroines in World history
Too many to call
Your favorite food and drink
Bread and Butter Pudding. White wine
Your favorite names
Pallavi and Antara
What do you hate the most?
Elevators
The military event you admire the most
Thermopylae
The reform you admire the most
RTI
The natural talent you’d like to be gifted with
To be able to paint well
How do you wish to die?
Happily
What is your present state of mind?
Content
Faults for which you have the most tolerance
Procrastination
Your motto in life
Don’t have one
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