In the party, he’s almost a mythic character, his hardline so hardline that for many in the party, it evokes more nostalgia than frustration. Even in his personal life, it’s the hard line that he walks. A typical VS day begins with a 20-minute yoga session before dawn after a five-hour sleep. His personal aides say he doesn’t waver from the routine: breakfast of three idlis, “a fistful of rice” and vegetables as lunch at noon, three rotis and a Robusta banana before 6 pm for dinner. The same menu, the same timing, day after day.

“A few months back, he mentioned in passing that he had not seen a movie in the last thirty years. I asked if he would let me take him to one and he abruptly agreed. We went for a commercial Malayalam movie that he sat through silently,” says a close confidant. You won’t catch him listening to music either — though he sprang a surprise on a TV programme last week, singing a 1960s romantic song.

He is a voracious reader, often spending almost every minute of his travel hours in it. The rear seat of his car is crammed with newspapers, periodicals and books. He, however, is not known to be particularly fond of any genre of fiction.

VS’s wife Vasumathi used to be a nurse in a Government hospital, before retiring 15 years ago. His son Arun, a Master’s in Computer Applications, is a Deputy Director in a Government institution in Thiruvanantapuram, daughter Asha is a Phd in Pharmacology—infotech and biotech is perhaps his next generation. -rajeev.pi@expressindia.com