Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee is a unique politician, who had no enemies and friends across the political spectrum.

While his public life is an open book, he carefully guarded his private life. Here are few nuggets of information about Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Do you know them?

* Do you know that Vajpayee's oratorical skills were first recognised in an inter-university eloccution contest. Vajpayee's train was delayed and by the time he arrived at the venue, the competitions were over and judges were busy finalising the winners. On Vajpayee's request, they allowed him to speak. After his speech, they revised the winners list and no marks for guessing who won the contest.

* Do you know that Vajpayee, the die-hard RSS Pracharak-turned-politician, was once the member of All India Students Federation, the Communist student wing. However, he soon shunned communism and embraced Hindutwa ideology.

* Do you know that In 1960s, he adopted the family of his close friend BM Kaul after the latter's death. The grand daughter of BM Kaul is Vajpayee's adopted grand daughter, who married Ranjan Bhattacharya, a Bengali.

* Vajpayee liked non-vegetarian food and liked an occasional drink. He once famously said that politics is all shor (ruckus and noise) and after shor there should be sharaba (wine).

* Manali was Vajpayee's favourite place. Whenever he was low in spirits, he used to escape to Manali. Even as Prime Minister, he took a week's leave from duties to spend time in Manali.

* After retiring from active politics, Vajpayee said the BJP was in the safe hands of LK Advani and Pramod Mahajan. Ironically, both could not become prime ministers.