Indiraji - Through My Eyes

Indiraji - Through My Eyes

Product ID: 16753

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Author: Usha Bhagat
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 312
ISBN/UPC (if available): 067005772X

Description

In 1953, Usha Bhagat, a young kindergarten teacher, left her job to become secretary to Indira Gandhi. It was an association that would continue, with some breaks, for thirty-one years, until Mrs Gandhi’s death in 1984.

During those years, Usha Bhagat assisted Mrs Gandhi in matters personal as well as official. One of her special responsibilities was to keep Indira Gandhi informed of new developments and ideas in the world of arts, crafts, cinema and theatre, and facilitate interactions with artists and intellectuals. She accompanied her on many state visits, helped select saris and gifts, and organized intimate celebrations as well as large official banquets. Over her three decades of association with Mrs Gandhi, Usha Bhagat would share some of the happiest, and saddest, moments in the life of the Nehru–Gandhi family, and be witness to a side of her very few have seen.

Indiraji -Through My Eyes reveals the special relationship Usha Bhagat shared with Mrs Gandhi: one which went beyond the purely professional yet was not quite that of friends. It provides fascinating vignettes of Indira Gandhi as an attentive mother and affectionate grandmother, a thoughtful friend, a sensitive artist and creative intellectual, thereby offering hitherto completely unseen aspects of her personality. Photographs taken by the author, along with notes, memos, doodles and personal letters from Mrs Gandhi, add a unique flavour to this memoir.

Contents

INTRODUCTION

PROLOGUE-PRE- 1947

PART-1947-60
Flight from Kashmir
Refugees Twice Over
Aunty Gauba and Indiraji
The Amazing Incident
Holidays with the Family
First Time Abroad
The Moodiness of Mrs Gandhi
Life at the Prime Minister’s House
Interesting Visitors
Family Relationships
Arrogance of Power
Indiraji becomes congress President
Discovering Other Worlds
Feroze Gandhi’s Death

PART II-1961-69

Letters from Paris and Moscow
The PA Circuit
Jackie Kennedy’s Visit
A Mother’s Anxiety
Dash to Tezpur and Panditji’s Illness
Journey with Ashes
Minister for Information and Broadcasting
The Prime Minister
The AICC session in Bombay
The Early Days
The Surprise Birthday Party
Rajiv and Sonia’s Wedding
The Thimphu Episode
From Brazil to Borobudur

INTERLUDE
Indiraji-An Enigmatic and Complex Personality
Notes from Indiraji
Letters from Indiraji

PART III-1970-79
The Bangladesh War
Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman
The Shimla Accord
Sanjay and Maneka
Turbulent Passages
The Emergency
Sanjay Tastes Power
An Unhappy Interlude
Dorothy Norman
A Kind of Farewell
The End of another phase

PART IV-1980-84
Return to power
Circling the globe
Maneka
The Loyalty Factor
A growing distance
Operation Blue Star
Our last meeting
Ekla Cholo Re

EPILOGUE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INDEX