A rose for Nehru

May always reminds me of a birth and a death: ‘Panchishay Baisakh’, the birth anniversary of Gurudev Tagore and the passing away o...

May always reminds me of a birth and a death: ‘Panchishay Baisakh’, the birth anniversary of Gurudev Tagore and the passing away of Jawaharlal Nehru on the 27th. Sifting through my papers this year I came across something that brought memories flooding back about one of these amazing men, Pandit Nehru. It’s a yellowed autograph book from my girlhood and Nehru’s signature occupies pride of place in it along with Gandhiji’s. I never really interacted with the Father of the Nation, but little did I realise so many decades ago that I would meet Nehru several more times, each on a different continent!

A now-sepia photograph reminds me that the next encounter with Nehru was after my marriage, on my husband’s posting at the embassy in Colombo. There, as a junior wife in the welcome line-up, I was unwittingly pitched into the limelight when Panditji stopped in front of me. He suddenly lifted my right wrist, glanced at my watch and said, “Der nahi hui!” smiled at me and went on to inspect the guard of honour. A couple of years later he came with his entire family to Berlin but it was his November 1961 visit to the US that had the most electrifying effect on both of us. And it all happened because I wanted to present Nehru with a rose on his birthday.

I was amazed during that trip to see the avid interest he had in diverse things. This statesman who ranked among the greatest men of our century was thrilled to see a “cowboy” shooting from the hip during the filming of western in a Hollywood studio. He was equally delighted to see Disneyland with Walt Disney himself and attend a dinner with Hollywood greats. We, as the entourage, were beneficiaries of this unusual itinerary.

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As Panditji was to leave on the morning of his birthday I went to the hotel to give him a rose as a present, despite my husband’s admonitions. He was in the hotel lobby as I walked across with a rose and greeted him. Seeing the rose, his eyes lit up and he put out a hand to take it. As his fingers touched my hand with the rose there was a crackling sound and he leapt back exclaiming, “Kya hua?” Seeing the consternation on my face and bewilderment on the prime minister’s, our venerable ambassador, B.K. Nehru stepped in quickly.

It appears that I had accumulated static electricity while walking across the synthetic carpet and had transferred that ‘charge’ to Panditji. That led to merriment all around and I, vastly relieved, noticed that the rose was still in his hand. Nothing could separate Nehru from a rose…As for me, that last meeting with Panditji remained the most special. Not very many people can claim, after all, to have shocked their prime minister!

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