Delhiwale: Marcel Proust’s envoy in Dilli

The Proust Questionnaire is a confessional parlour game immortalised by great Parisian writer Marcel Proust, who answered it twice at different stages of his life

The Proust Questionnaire is a confessional parlour game immortalised by great Parisian writer Marcel Proust, who answered it twice at different stages of his life. His responses to the same questions changed the second time, reflecting how people evolve. For years, we have brought this Parisian parlour tradition to the Indian capital, inviting Delhiwale from diverse walks of life to reveal themselves through its questions. Today, on Proust’s 155th birth anniversary, our special guest is Thierry Mathou, the ambassador of Proust’s homeland, France. The genial diplomat graciously answered the famous questionnaire despite his embassy being super-busy in the midst of preparations for the French National Day reception on Tuesday. Notwithstanding the ambassador’s residence—circa 1980s, designed by Paul Chemetov in collaboration with Raj Rewal and others—being in the final stages of renovation, Thierry Mathou very kindly agreed to pose for a portrait beside the living room piano while it still lay beneath protective covers.

On Proust’s 155th birth anniversary, our special guest is Thierry Mathou, the ambassador of Proust’s homeland, France. (HT Photo)

The principal aspect of your personality.

Determination and perseverance.

Your favourite qualities in a man.

Honesty, courage, and constancy.

Your favourite qualities in a woman.

Same as a man. Qualities don’t have a gender.

Your favourite occupation.

Reading and writing.

If not yourself, who would you have been?

A 19th/20th-century Orientalist, travelling between the Himalayas, India, China, and Central Asia. I have a long-standing passion for travel and missionary accounts written by authors such as Thomas Manning, Evariste Huc, Joseph Gabet, Alexander Csoma de Koros, Sylvain Levi, Jacques Bacot, Alexandra David-Neel, Giuseppe Tucci, Sven Hedin, etc.

Where would you like to live?

Bhutan.

Your idea of happiness.

Being in a secluded retreat somewhere in the lap of nature with my wife and a library.

Not meeting my wife, my partner of 42 years.

Your favourite prose authors.

Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Albert Camus, André Malraux, Franz Kafka, Rudyard Kipling, Ernest Hemingway, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Rabindranath Tagore, Cao Xueqin.

Your favourite heroes in fiction.

The Little Prince (from Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s eponymous novel), Edmond Dantes (from Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo), Arsène Lupin (from Maurice Leblanc’s eponymous novel), Asterix, Indiana Jones.

Your favourite heroines in fiction.

Mulan (the legendary Chinese folk heroine), Draupadi, Antigone (a fierce tragic heroine from Greek mythology), Esmeralda (from Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame), Anna Karenina.

Your heroes in real life.

Aung San Suu Kyi, whom I have the honour of calling an old friend and whose unjustifiable detention I deplore every day.

What characters in history do you most dislike?

All those who thought they were saviours but became tyrants.

Your heroes in World history.

Mahatma Gandhi, Charles de Gaulle, Marie Curie, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, Tibetan King Gesar of Ling – whose epic is a most fascinating read.

Your favourite names.

My children’s names: Alexandra, François and Charles.

What do you hate the most?

Arrogance, ostentatious wealth, and indifference to the misery of others.

The military event you admire the most.

A people’s capacity to resist an invader. The resistance of the Ukrainian people to Russia’s war of aggression is exemplary.

The reform you admire the most.

The abolition of the death penalty, wherever it takes place — for it demands immense political courage in the face of social opposition that often transcends cultures and political systems and fault lines.

The natural talent you’d like to be gifted with.

Very rare hyperpolyglotism.

How do you wish to die?

Reading a book in the shade of a flowering tree or meditating before discovering the unknown.

What is your present state of mind?

Time goes by too fast. It’s already been three years since I arrived in India. Only one year left to go!

Faults for which you have the most tolerance.

Naivety.

Your motto in life.

Do everything seriously without ever taking yourself seriously.