Panaji, Dec 17 (IANS): Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar likes reading in the loo, even if the book is based on an epic, like the Mahabharata.

Speaking at a book release function in Panaji, Parrikar said that Maratha King Shivaji was his ideal and that he always tried following his tenets, even though he could not emulate them all.

"I am currently reading a book on the Mahabharata. It's in one toilet. There's another book in the other toilet," Parrikar said, adding that his loo break was perhaps the only time when he could read undisturbed.

"Those who have stacks of books in toilets are the ones who are really knowledgeable," quipped Parrikar, who is invariably seen poring over a book or government files while seated in the front seat of his official car and zipping around the state.

He said that he had just finished reading Amish Tripathi's Shiva trilogy, all three books in a row.

Reading about the Mahabharata in English, according to Parrikar, lent new perspectives.

"Reading it in English gives you a different view. I can see things in a new perspective," he said, while commenting on one of greatest mythological epics.

Parrikar also confessed to the audience that Shivaji was his ideal and that he tried emulating the Maratha king's principles as much as he could.

"I try to follow his ideals as much as possible, but sometimes you cannot," the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said.