"RNG had all the contradictions of great men. He could be magnanimous to a fault (the way he indulged Mulgaokar); he could, without any trace of guilt, also be mean—as he was with some of his low-paid stringers. One day he came rushing out of Hick's bungalow in Chennai screaming that the Kakinada correspondent should be sacked because he was "more expensive than Kissinger."