Mumbai, April 22 -- Trust Odisha's four-term incumbent CM Naveen Patnaik to become the poster boy for singlehood. We'd had the pleasure of knowing the 72-year-old, who is believed to be fighting the most difficult election of his career this month, during the early 1990s, when his sparse and ascetic Aurangzeb Road haveli had been the setting for at least twice-a-week soirees/salons for the likes of Koo Stark, Mick Jagger, the late Rajmata of Jaypore, and his own sister - the celebrated NYC-based author Gita Mehta. Though he'd lived alone, he had never struck us as being lonely. Brilliant and laid back even then, when he'd reigned for many decades as the toast of international cafe society, Patnaik, the son of the iconic strongman of Odisha, Biju Patnaik, for us had epitomised the best of the Single Life. An austere but comfortable existence, in an elegant but simple home, an eclectic circle of friends from near and far, and a world of books and ideas and travel and sparkling conversations, he was certainly one of the Capital's most agreeable denizens and a dear friend. Which is why, when Rajdeep Sardesai, who recently interviewed the peerlessly cryptic old fox, and subsequently tried to gain it some traction by drawing attention to Patnaik's single status, we were not surprised the wily politico handled it with his customary savvy. "What is it about single men/women that make them such successful politicians today?" Sardesai had tweeted, alluding to other singletons like PM Modi, Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, and CMs Mayawati and Mamata Banerjee. Now, though we do not subscribe to the popular belief that one's marital status impacts one's performance, there is certainly something to be said for the amount of valuable and free time that singlehood affords a professional in a demanding job. As always, Patnaik, whose legendary astuteness and tact had held him in good stead in the most sophisticated drawing rooms of New York and Paris, as well as the corridors of power in Bhubaneswar, used Sardesai's delivery to score an easy point for himself. "Being single is no mantra for success, nor is it lonely," he tweeted back. "Four-and-a-half crore people of Odisha are family for me." Game, set and match to Patnaik....