Tolstoy, for example, didn't get it though he deserved it. Mahatma Gandhi did not find favor with the Nobel Committee, though he was beyond doubt the greatest apostle of peace in modern times. That reminds us of Guenter Grass's India connections. He has been visiting India off and on since his first tour of India in 1975. It was Calcutta that drew him unto itself.
Nobody can fix that enigmatic quality.
But there is something magnetic about Calcutta. He lived in Calcutta, stayed at Raj Bhavan as a guest, but this did not stand in the way of his getting a feel of the city. He traveled by bus, went to the areas where the poor lived, saw the multitude of facets of the city, interacted with the intellectuals. The end product was the novel, The Flounder. The book too reveals a sort of love and revulsion for the city.