An India’s consul-general in Melbourne would have much to chuckle about. After all, she’s the one who has been in the diplomatic hot seat this year while Indian international students have voiced their anger over violent attacks and dodgy colleges. But then, Anita Nayar, doesn’t conform. Sitting on her couch Anita Nayar in her Toorak residence, bare feet tucked under her, she chortles at the suggestion she is an undiplomatically diplomat.

The stereotypical diplomat is formal yet flits with ease at cocktail parties, charming all, but never divulging her own opinion on matters. Nayar’s default setting is informal. She hates cocktail parties and small talk even more. Her opinions are freely provided, often peppered with self-deprecating humour.

”In a lot of cultures you have to talk about everything under the sun before you can get to the point,” she says, ”I’m a very straightforward kind of person. I probably seem undiplomatically to some extent.”

At the age 21, Nayar, now 48, ever since she join the Indian foreign service has built a curriculum vitae to induce envy in any travel-hungry adventurer, with diplomatic postings in Hong Kong, China, Israel, Hungary, Singapore, Burma and now Australia.

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Source : The Age