It was September 1995 when Nadira Naipaul (then still Nadira Alvi) phoned me to say her beau, VS Naipaul – who died this past August 11 – was in town and I should see him. I refused. Why, he was an abrasive, disagreeable old man who had destroyed journalist Nusrat Nusrullah in his book “Among the Believers”. I didn’t want the same done to myself.