have any explanation even today. That was the last time we played chess together! On two-three occasions I suggested we play a game but he flatly refused, without citing any reason.’ Initially, Joshi enjoyed his work in the office. Not so much because of the work per se but because office had ultra-modern facilities, international atmosphere and good work culture. There was no work-related stress. They had off on weekends. There used to be a lot of time to read. UPU had a well-equipped library. Moreover the executives were permitted to buy any work-related books. For his official work Joshi often had to go to Geneva. There were many large bookshops. After his work got over he would spend hours in those shops. He once told me, ‘I enjoyed the luxury of buying any book I liked without bothering about the price! I read a lot in those years.’ As far as books are concerned Joshi enjoyed reading both, fiction and non-fiction. In fiction, Don Quixote, the novel written by a world-renowned Spanish writer Cervantes in 1605 was his favourite and he often referred to it. He loved Somerset Maugham especially for his cynicism. Maugham’s novel The Moon and Six Pence he liked in particular. Joshi once wrote that anyone interested in writing short stories should read at least six stories of Maugham. Among his other favourites in fiction were: P. G. Wodehouse; Mark Twain; George Mikes (pronounced Mikesh), the Hungaryborn British writer who wrote humorously about different countries; Animal Farm by George Orwell and Darkness at Noon, a novel by Hungarian-British author Arthur Koestler which was published in 1940 and exposed perhaps for the first time the reality of Communist system; Robinson Crusoe, a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published in 1719; The Fable of the Bees by Bernard Mandeville, an Anglo-Dutch philosopher and economist, who in an entertaining manner argues that it is the 56
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Sharad Joshi : Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage
