When he was High Commissioner to Britain, he expanded the scope of diplomacy. He had a rapport with the royal family, and would discuss Indian philosophy with Prince Charles. I remember one or two journalists asking why Singhvi keeps planting trees in London.

But he reached out to all kinds of people. He presented 150 small statues of Gandhiji to different universities there. Every Indian in Britain knew him.

In fact, when his name was announced for the post (High Commissioner to Britain), he talked to me about it, whether he should go or not. He said, I will not go because I have been asked by a single party (Chandra Shekhar’s). He spoke to Rajiv Gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and I K Gujral. He was that kind of a consensus person.

In art and culture, the depth of his knowledge was immeasurable. When Sanskriti was being set up — Singhvi was on the board of trustees of the Foundation — he would tell me what the word means, its deeper meaning. It was because of his love for Hindi that he suffered. A few months ago he'd had an angioplasty, but still insisted on attending a Hindi conference in the US. After that his health was really in trouble.

It was this passion that could sometimes be misunderstood by people who said he did too many things. But he lived life to the brim.

O.P. Jain is founder-president of Sanskriti