An ode to India

Blitz Bureau

HOW does one write a nation’s history while juxtaposing it alongside one’s memoirs? It requires a high degree of finesse, dexterity, an ability to take oneself lightly and a certain detachment to observe and comment on things dispassionately. On a score of ten, Gopalkrishna Gandhi would easily notch an eight for the elegance, and impeccably impartial manner in which he has combined India’s arch since independence with his own story.

What makes the book such an easy and engrossing read is the effortless manner in which the story has been told. Not easy when one considers Gopal Gandhi’s lineage – paternal grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and the maternal grandson of C Rajagopalachari, India’s first Governor General, Chief Minister, Congress stalwart and a pitamaha to a legion of Congress leaders and freedom fighters. That his storied lineage does not overwhelm the narrative is a reflection of his upbringing and experiences – through his long years as an IAS officer, a diplomat and Governor.

A delectable story

But how did this personal history happen, it’s a delectable story that he lays out right at the beginning of his prelude: ‘’David Davidar, Aleph Book Company’s initiator, has a sharp eye for new books. Towards the close of 2022, he came by Fintan O’Toole’s We Don’t Know Ourselves, which described itself as A Personal History of Modern Ireland. He sent it to me, saying I might like reading it, and if I did, would I be interested in attempting something on its lines for post-independence India? “The book’s title held two keywords and thoughts: ‘personal’ and ‘history’. The first was appealing, the second scary.

Describing vignettes of independent India as I had seen or heard of them in the way of an extended Adda was an attractive idea. And there were around me, at home, things to encourage exactly that: fading photographs and ageing letters, some of them laminated and protected from oblivion by a vintage home remedy-pouches of tobacco leaves placed at intervals between them. This bric-abrac from the past, growing old with me, urged: ‘Say yes!’”

Detached observer And so was born The Undying Light for which Davidar deserves equal credit – for seeing an opportunity and getting the right man for the job and gently persuading him to say `yes`. So how does any chronicler approach such an exercise? Writing about slices of own’s own life and painting it in a veritable Sangam with the flow of the times and the events that shaped this country over seven decades and man age to connect the dots and create a narrative that is absorbing, interesting and elevating all at once.

This entire exercise of crafting a slice of history is possible only when one is an observer – silent, perceptive e and detached. Gopalkrishna Gandhi is all three and to that you can add a fourth – an ability to not take himself seriously. In fact, this quality of being just a spectator as events and history unfold gives the book that unique Yiddish term ‘chutzpah’ – to weave notes from one’s life with events in history and leave the reader with a sense of belonging.

Feel-good factor

Without a doubt, Gopalkrishna Gandhi had a front-side seat in history, thanks to his lineage, his father’s job as the editor of the Hindustan Times and Rajaji’s long years as an elder statesman. But to connect it with his own life and times, draw sustenance from the many incidents and then weave your personal history into it is a difficult act. Gopalkrishna Gandhi has done it with much aplomb.

This is a book that will leave you with a sense of feel-good. Eerily similar to a sumptuous meal, a thriller of a Test match or a great film that you want to see again and gain. The Undying Light is a book that one can read in bits and whole, time and time again.

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