It is weird. Some weeks ago, on the back of a column I did for Mint about Rajat Gupta, a journalist from Bloomberg/Businessweek called me. He sounded like my (very funny) cousin in Washington D.C. so I kinda took to him immediately even though we had never met. He wanted to interview me about what I had written about Rajat Gupta. We talked for say 20 minutes. And now I find myself being quoted in several articles on Rajat Gupta. It isn’t a particularly nice feeling because some of the quotes have been taken out of context. One in particular, which appeared in a story that made it to Mint’s front page, made me wince. It says that I was an acquaintance of Rajat Gupta, which I am not. My quote was pretty sappy too, something about him being “chatty.” I don’t want to put any other journalist in trouble, but my recollection of our conversation is that Bloomberg was after a description of what Rajat Gupta was doing in the Bangalore IPL cricket match where I happened to be. So the questions were like, “What was he doing?” and Was he relaxed and “Was he talking to people?” and I am sure I said something like “Yeah, he seemed pretty relaxed.” and “Yeah, he was chatty.” All of which I understand, having “slotted” certain quotes in certain “locations” in a story; and also having asked sources leading questions to get that particular quote. But it is strange to be on the other side of an interview.

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