Personal Life
Menon was an intensely controversial figure during his life, and has remained so even well after his death. Widely described as brilliant and arrogant, he was known for the sheer force of his personality.
A complex man, Menon dressed expensively in bespoke Savile Row suits, while maintaining an otherwise ascetic lifestyle, abstaining from tobacco, alcohol, and meat.
The Sino-Indian War of 1962, marked a turning point in the life of Menon and he himself described it as a "grave mistake" to underestimate China.
Menon was widely reviled by Western statesmen who loathed his arrogance, outspokenness, and fiercely anti-Western stances. American President Dwight Eisenhower considered the outwardly courteous Menon a "menace ... governed by ambition to prove himself the master international manipulator and politician of the age". Western publications routinely referred to him as "India's Rasputin" or "Nehru's Evil Genius".
Read more about this topic: V. K. Krishna Menon
Famous quotes containing the words personal life, personal and/or life:
“The dialectic between change and continuity is a painful but deeply instructive one, in personal life as in the life of a people. To “see the light” too often has meant rejecting the treasures found in darkness.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“It is very certain that each man carries in his eye the exact indication of his rank in the immense scale of men, and we are always learning to read it. A complete man should need no auxiliaries to his personal presence.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Ecouraging a child means that one or more of the following critical life messages are coming through, either by word or by action: I believe in you, I trust you, I know you can handle this, You are listened to, You are cared for, You are very important to me.”
—Barbara Coloroso (20th century)