“Home can be two places. For me, that’s both India and the UK”

Even in the annals of the BBC, Mark Tully is unique.

He dug roots – and dug in his heels, for that matter – when he virtually demanded that the big bureaucratic news corporation allow him to report from a single country for the entire duration his career, a country he doesn’t just have a love affair with but calls home.

And yet he doesn’t disavow his British antecedents to acknowledge his Indian ones. “Home can be two places,” he said, and it could not be truer than of him.

In a conversation that spanned some of the most seminal events in India’s contemporary history – events Mark covered onground, from the Punjab insurgency years and Operation Blue Star to the Babri Masjid demolition and more – he spoke of being eyewitness to the making of modern India and the recalibration of this subcontinent.

It showed when he told priceless anecdotes of his first-person encounters with some of the most central figures in public life here, and in England, including Indira Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto. General Zia Ul Haq and Margaret Thatcher. Devi Lal and Chaudhary Charan Singh. Rajiv Gandhi and VP Singh.

We won’t try to tell those stories here – our Facebook page has the full conversation – but here’s two choice one-liners from two former Prime Ministers to Mark!

Morarji Desai on looking young at 82: “I wrote a book about drinking piss, but nobody read it. Now that I’m Prime Minister, more people are.”

Indira Gandhi, on losing public support during the Emergency: “I never lost the support of the people – they were only misled by rumours. Many of them spread by the BBC.”

Mark‘s is an incredibly varied life – we discovered in casual conversation with him after that he even acted alongside the late great Shashi Kapoor in the nuanced Junoon as “what else, an angrezi soldier” and we can guarantee you’ll come away nourished from this conversation, so do watch the full session above it if you missed the evening.