Conversation with Kul Gautam
EPISODE 9 of The Fading Causes Podcast is here. I talk with Kul Chandra Gautam, former Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF tracking his path from a remote Nepali village to the corridors of power in New York.
It is a journey that has experienced dreams and nightmares, aspiration and frustration, noble ideals and base ambitions, consummate diplomacy and crass selfishness, skill and guile and, ultimately, promises kept or broken.
And along this route strides Kul Gautam, navigating its rights and wrongs with a serene confidence. How does he manage to keep faith with the pantheon of gods of the United Nations at the altar of which he has worshipped faithfully for so long through the prayers of Resolutions and Conventions, may of which he devised himself?
Whether these are false idols or represent the true faith for our humanity is up for grabs as the UN approaches its 80th year. In our era of fractured politics and eroded faith in global institutions, can the ideals that shaped Gautam’s life still inspire how the peoples and nations of the world organise their inter-relationships today?
