HYDERABAD: Staring at the board, where my colleague has one of her interviews on William Dalrymple pinned up, I remembered the first time I met the author. Sometime ago, when he was in the city, I had to interview the author. Fascinated by the beauty of his writing in ‘White Mughals’, I left office at 5 pm in the evening, for an interview that was supposed to happen at 6 pm before he went up on stage for a 90-minute presentation along with singer Vidya Shah. The interview didn’t happen before the show as scheduled, but I wasn’t too anxious as his beautiful reading had us all enthralled. The presentation was over, and later we got to know for some reason Dalrymple wouldn’t be speaking to any of us. Slightly upset, but not ready to give up yet, I followed him to the place where he w ould be having dinner. For some reason, he wasn’t there as well. After hours of wait and a sleepless night, we got to know that he would be meeting us in the morning. We rushed to meet him as the sun rose and I as got some really interesting details about himand a great story. That’s the day I learnt, there is indeed some virtue in waiting and not giving up too easy.