Published on: June 1, 2010

Former Under-Secretary General of United Nations, author and Member of Indian Parliament Mr Shashi Tharoor visited TIPS on the 24th of May 2010.

He took keen interest in the activities of Pallium India and visited patients under treatment and families. He has promised his support to the Palliative Care movement in India.

From his blog, ‘After the Storm’:

Earlier, it was a visit to a palliative care centre for Tharoor. In this place of pain and sadness, Shashi of the Sorrows seems to come into his own. He is genuinely at ease among the patients, mostly suffering from terminal cancers, reassuring them and chatting with their families. They ask for nothing, but he offers help, his cousin Sharad who runs his office taking down details.

The nurses look at him with covetous eyes as he swishes past in starched splendour. In between, he stops to chatter in Bengali to a doctor from Kolkata. “I grew up in Kolkata,” he says almost apologetically while the doctor looks dazed with happiness.

Thank you very much for the visit, Mr Tharoor!