Tagore is a wonderful exemplar of that because he believed in a kind of cosmopolitanism which did not want to erase differences. By the way, Tagore is not alone and this is not some kind of a Bengali exceptionalism. Think of a very major Indian nationalist of the turn of the 20th century like Lala Lajpat Rai. He had a strong internationalist dimension. I am writing a history of ideas right now. Lala Lajpat Rai spent a good number of years in the US, and probably the most important book on the US was written by him in the second decade of the 20th century (The United States of America). He has some very insightful views on how we compare race in the US with caste in India. He befriended W.E.B. DuBois.

• But while you were at work on the book, the Tsunami struck. That must have come as a shock. It was a very violently tragic affirmation of the case you were making about the Indian Ocean rim.

It was hopefully tragic and I wish that had not happened. But what it brought home in rather a tragic fashion was that this is a world that is connected. You have an earthquake in Indonesia and the waves reach Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries in under two hours, in about three hours the waves reach India and Sri Lanka, and in about five hours they are pounding the coast of East Africa. What happened also at that time was that working together for relief of affected people brought together the peoples of the Indian Ocean world. There was a tragedy, but there was also a expression of a common humanity. But what I also suggested by using that oceanic metaphor was that there are both things, global and inter-regional, that take place together. And there are many other processes that are taking place today, and it’s just not in the world of nature. In the world of politics, economy, and so on.