In Sanskrit drama, a vidushaka, like his kinsman the court jester of European tradition, was both a clown and a commentator on passing events. Of unserious mien, he carried with him a bagful of frivolity, sarcasm, wit and wisdom. The vidushaka on these pages is Rajendra Rai.

Rajendra Rai

Rajendra Rai retired as India’s ambassador to Thailand in March 2001. Before that, between 1981 and 1997 he had successively been ambassador to the Republic of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) and simultaneously to the (formerly French) Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Gabon and the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, a joint secretary in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs in Delhi, Indian consul general in New York, ambassador to the Republic of Sudan and ambassador to Ukraine, being at the same time accredited to Armenia and (ex-Soviet) Georgia. Between 1965 and 1981, he had served as a junior diplomat in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and Indian diplomatic missions in Rabat, Vientiane, Paris and Dhaka, where he was also India’s deputy high commissioner towards the end of his stay. He spent the academic year of 1974-75 at the University of Oxford in England.

He lives with his wife in a township next to Delhi with the most unlikely name of Noida, originally an acronym of the English initials of the name of the government agency which developed it, but a name which, having in its indigenised form become part of the local speech has come to stay.

His contact address: rairajendra@gmail.com

Contents

Introduction to The Waste Sad Time

The Waste Sad Time

Articles

Starting from the 1 st February, 2006, there will be on this site an article on the 1st of every month on whatever the vldushaka’s mind turns to.

Caveat

Rajendra Rai has asserted his right to be identified as the author of the contents of this site.