New Delhi, Aug. 27 -- Jagdish Bhagwati, the great trade economist, begins his conversation by reminiscing about a Canadian professor, Harry Johnson, who was an early influence on him because the professor's lectures were a brisk tour de force of international economics. As a student, he didn't understand all of it, Bhagwati says, but Johnson's enthusiasm for the subject was infectious.

To this day, any conversation with Bhagwati, now 91 and retired from Columbia University, is both educational and entertaining. Ask which metro stop is closest to his apartment and one not only receives directions but also a story, told in a way that is more comic than tragic, about R.K. Laxman. On a visit to Bhagwati's home decades ago, the legendary cart...