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First Person Singluar

Indira Cried Her Soul Out But To One !!

Aroon Sharma
Feb 2011

In 1949, Pearl S. Buck hosted a party-of-the select at Washington to honour Nehru (on an official visit) and Indira. Mrs Dorothy Norman -- a pro-Indian Jew, photographer, writer-editor and an acknowledged patron of arts was a distinguished invitee. Indira struck a rapport with Dorothy: Both visited art galleries, restaurants, Broadway plays and shopped.

On her return, Indira started a correspondence with Dorothy. At the outset, Indira confessed: “What amazes me is the way I can write to you about myself -- I haven’t done this to anyone ever.” She was to confide later: “I felt I had no option but to subordinate my life to my father’s; there being no choice in the sense that I felt my father’s loneliness so intensely,…

…. and I felt also that whatever I amounted to , or whatever satisfaction I got from my work, would not, from a wide perspective, be so useful as my tagging along, smoothing the corners and dealing with many details….However, I must do something else….Write ? Perhaps writing would bring some kind of order and clear the path to future thought and work.”

Strangers irked Indira. “They amuse me and they irritate me and sometimes I find myself observing them as if I were not of the same species at all.” When a film “All The King’s Men” wasn’t hailed, she wrote: “It irritates me intensely, (though) it is silly to be irritated at such trifles. All the same, not having anyone with similar tastes gives one a sense of loneliness and isolation which is not at all pleasant.”

In mid-50s, Indira wrote: “I think you know me almost better than I know myself.” In 1954, she added: “I am doing a tremendous amount of work….but I haven’t discovered my métier yet. And consequently am still looking for something in which I can put my whole heart and soul; to feel that sense of utter exhaustion and peace that comes in dying to give something life.”

Later, as a CWC member, she wrote: “What a life I have made for myself, watching and wondering if it’s all worth the trouble….It’s certainly true that I have grown enormously since you saw me last. I am confident of myself but still humble enough to feel actually embarrassed when all kinds of VIPs come for advice. Can you imagine me being an ‘elder statesman’ ?”

As a politician, Indira rued her domestic life: “I have been, and am deeply unhappy in my domestic life. Now the hurt and unpleasantness doesn’t seem to matter so much. I am sorry, though, to have missed the most wonderful thing in life, having a complete and perfect relationship with another human being; for only thus, I feel, can one’s personality fully develop and blossom.”

In 1957, Indira’s health picked. She wrote people felt that she was “lit up from inside”, followed by: “Ever since I was a small girl, there seemed to be a force driving me on – as if there were a debt to pay. But suddenly the debt seems to be paid – anyhow I get tremendous urge to leave everything and retire to a far place high in the mountains. Not caring if I ever did a stroke of work again.”

Now Indira was into yoga. To Dorothy, she wrote: “I get up early these days to do a special set of exercises. It is a system….of Yoga….taught us by an exceedingly good-looking yogi. In fact, it was his looks, especially his magnificent body, which attracted everyone to his system. He is, however, exasperating to talk to, so full of superstition.” ( The yogi: Dhirendra Brahmachari ).

More politics awaited Indira. She became the President of the Indian National Congress. Feroze Gandhi’s resented it. Wrote Indira: “ A veritable sea of trouble is engulfing me. On the domestic front, F ( to Dorothy her nick for Feroze ).…has always resented my very existence, but since I have become President, he exudes such hostility that it seems to poison the air….

….. Just to make things difficult for me , he is leaning more and more towards the communists and is sabotaging my efforts to strengthen the Congress. Unfortunately, he and his friends are friendly with some of our ministers and an impossible situation is being created.” In 1959, the Kerala government was dismissed ( by a fuming Nehru through a recalcitrant Indira ).

As if guilty, she explained to Dorothy: “All sections in India, with the solitary exception of the communists, feel that I have done a good job and there is a tremendous pressure on me to continue for another term. It has been tough work – sometimes exhausting – I have gained tremendously in self-confidence. But I do not wish to continue for….

….many reasons. The routine part of the work takes too much time and is too confining. I have felt like a bird in a too-small cage.” She stepped down. And wrote: “Apart from the mental and physical depression there was a physical one too. I lost a lot of weight and have been quite shaky on my feet, fainting off a couple of times.” Dorothy sent her music ( gramophone records ).

Indira was touched. “All through this dark period, the only thing that seemed to help was music and poetry.” A month later: “I am far from well. I am afraid, I am not looking at all radiant just now.” In 1960, Feroze died. She confided in Dorothy: “I am….quite numb with shock and although the burden of sorrow seems heavy enough…now I feel…

….it can only increase….I feel empty and hollow….there is an enormous weight crushing me….will I be ever free from the burden or be able to touch and see without feeling ?” It was 1961. Indira was still broken. “I have been hesitating to write to you , waiting until I feel better. But now I really don’t know if such a time will ever come ….?

…..I have always thought of myself as a positive person. Now I feel negative. I’m not ill. I’m not well. I just don’t feel alive. Nobody seems aware of the difference. I am in depths of depression….and hope….I would be more alive and awake by the time I get to the US.” ( Together, Nehru and Indira visited the United States in 1961, 12 years after the first visit.)

On Sanjay-Maneka love marriage in 1974, a son-doting mother in law in Indira confided in Dorothy: “The wedding was quiet. I had some misapprehensions about the whole thing as Maneka is too very young….and I could not guess whether she knew her own mind. However, she seems to have fitted in and is a gay and joyous person to have around.”

In 1982, Indira met Dorothy in New York. Back home, she restarted the correspondence: “I am terribly overworked…in a net of ptocol and security…I am hounded by a sense of loss and decay….Is it because of age that one thinks things everywhere are deteriorating ?...Yeats said that things fall apart, the centre does not hold. What is the centre, and where ?

( Two years later, Indira was assassinated. Dorothy had the 35 year correspondence preserved. In 1985, she published: “Indira Gandhi: Letters To An American Friend”. At the Book Fair in New Delih in December last, I failed to find it. Well ! )

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