Honouring Singh with a Doctorate of Law, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh and Chancellor of the university, asked the gathering to look at the colour of his turban. Amid loud applause, Singh revealed that light blue "is one of my favourites and is often seen on my head".
The 74-year-old, soft-spoken economist-turned-prime minister recalled his friends at Cambridge had nicknamed him "blue turban".
Expressing his gratitude to the university, Singh said he was the third Indian prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi to have studied there. "My memories of my days in Cambridge are deep," he said and referred to his teachers like Nicholas Kaldor, Joan Robinson, Maurice Dobb and professor R C O Mathews.
"My teachers and my peers in Cambridge taught me to be open to argument and to be fearless and lucid in the expression of one's opinions. These virtues and a relentless desire to pursue intellectual truth were inculcated in me at Cambridge," Singh said.
He also recalled his association at Cambridge with economists Pierro Srafa, Amartya Sen, Jagdish Bhagwati, Mehbub-ul-Haq and Rehman Shobhan. As the clapping continued long after Singh ended his speech, he stood up a second time to acknowledge the kudos from the university for one of its favourite students.