He drank heavily for decades and reportedly still likes a whiskey or two, Churchill-like, at age 77. He takes pain-killers for his knees and has trouble with his bladder, liver and one remaining kidney. He is said to take a three-hour snooze every afternoon. He is given to interminable silences and sudden bursts of poetry, and not infrequently falls asleep in meetings.
Atal Behari Vajpayee, then, does not seem like the first choice to control a nuclear arsenal. But for four years, the Indian Prime Minister's hands have been the grandfatherly restraint holding back the warmongers in his nationalist Bharatiya Janata...
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