Diplomats usually arrive in public view fully formed. By the time they reach senior postings, their personalities are filtered through protocol, their opinions shaped by caution, their words chosen as carefully as their silences.

Which is why a small interview from the year 2007 of India's new high commissioner to New Zealand feels unusually revealing today.

At the time, Muanpuii Saiawi was only two years into India’s foreign service. Young enough to still speak about ambition without qualification. Honest enough to talk about the effort it took to get there.

Last week, nearly 20 years later, Saiawi began her tenure as India's top envoy in this part of the Indo-Pacific, succeeding Neeta Bhushan.

In that early interview with blogger Kima, who operates the popular blog 'Mizohican', she spoke about preparing for India’s civil services examination.

“I never used to time myself but let’s say… approximately 8 hours a day,” she said of her study routine.

Reading the interview today, you notice the details that would never make it into a diplomatic resume. At one point, the conversation turns to music. She mentions she had trained seriously enough to complete formal piano grades.

“Well, the maximum grade is a Grade 8. We have to write an exam called The Royal School of Music exam, and an English man comes to conduct the exam all the way from UK,” she explains.

The interviewer jokes she is just one grade away from becoming the next Beethoven. “Well actually I started from Grade 5 since I could play the keyboard pretty good then. It didn’t take me long to reach 7.”

Grade 7 sits just below the highest certification in the Royal Schools of Music system, part of a structured programme of technical and performance examinations.

Awaaz wasn't accepting that claim without a thorough investigation, in the course of which we stumbled upon this rendition from 2020 posted on the high commissioner's YouTube account.

"In memory of our beloved father Lalhmingliana Saiawi who lived an exemplary and remarkable life," Saiawi wrote with the video.

Elsewhere in the interview, the conversation turns to her training period in the foreign service and the dissertation that won her a medal – 'Reemergence of the left in Latin America and its implication for India'. Her academic guide, she adds, was Jawaharlal Nehru University professor, Varun Sahni.

Her career would take her through postings in South Korea, Japan and Israel. In Japan, she worked on education and cultural engagement. In Israel, her work included media and outreach.

Back in New Delhi, her work moved into disarmament and international security affairs, and later into cyber diplomacy and emerging technologies.

She would go on to serve as joint secretary in the Disarmament and International Security Affairs division and chair a United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on the Register of Conventional Arms in 2022.

There are also lighter moments in the interview. Asked about music, she lists what she listens to. Sarah McLachlan, Josh Groban, Queen. Then she pauses.

“I like classic rock too, like Queen and Manfred Mann… Wait! Don’t mention Manfred Mann, people will think I listen to such old genre of music!”

The 2007 interview reads today like a record of an earlier stage of a career. Before the senior roles. Before Wellington. Before the titles.

(You can read the full interview here)