From correspondents in Tamil Nadu, India, 11:00 AM IST

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee quoted from poet Robert Browning when questioned on what he had earlier said about the India-US nuclear deal.

Speaking to a host of media here on the sidelines of a Indian Statistical Institute function Saturday evening, the minister, who had been a teacher before he became a politician, quoted lines from Browning 's 'The Last Ride Together' which begins: 'I Said - Then, dearest, since 'tis so/Since now at length my fate I know ...'

Mukherjee recited from the para beginning, 'Past hopes already lay behind/What need to strive with a life awry?.

He quoted specifically the lines: Had I said that, had I done this/So might I gain, so might I miss/ (Might she have loved me? just as well/She might have hated, who can tell!/Where had I been now if the worst befell?/ And here we are riding, she and I.)

He left to his listener's imagination to judge who India was riding with.

(Staff Writer, © IANS)