It was as if, Attlee recalled, I had offered them margarine instead of butter.

And so, as a child, I saw jam disappear from the breakfast table, then margarine disappeared, then bread became too expensive, then milk became rationed.

So it might be that, if you went to a French restaurant and you looked through it and you found they only had margarine and they didn't have butter, you could say, Ah, I see what's wrong with them.

Former Prime Minister Clement Attlee, a member of a British constitutional commission, recalled that when he suggested the United States presidential system as a model to Indian leaders, they rejected it with great emphasis. I had the feeling that they thought I was offering them margarine instead of butter.