Entertaining profiles, with an equal dose on the author himself
People pass through their entire service lives with little to recall but their postings, seniors and juniors. Natwar is one of those blessed with the rare combination of having held the most important positions, interacted with the biggest and best personalities of his time, received much more acclaim and awards for his work (diplomatic as well as literary) and still managed to retain all of it for a publisher.
As he says, "we Indians are bad correspondents lapsing into indolence and indifference by middle age. For most, life does not begin at 40, it ebbs away at 30". His correspondence with Rajaji (in his nineties), Nirad Chaudhari (into a century), through to Nargis (the only contemporary by age), spans the last five decades of Natwar's own life. Yet, the few profiles offered here, ranging from senior statesmen (C. Rajagopalachari, Lord Mountbatten) to eminent authors (E.M. Forster, R.K. Narayan, Nirad Chaudhari) to practicing politicians (Indira Gandhi, Zia-ul-Haq), with Vijayalakshmi Pandit and Nargis Dutt thrown in, certainly makes for interesting reading.
Although Natwar humanely and entertainingly profiles some of the most interesting people of the recent past, every page tells as much about these characters as about Natwar himself. Obviously, of all Natwar Singh's literary efforts (including two highly readable biographies, of his ancestor, Bharatpur Maharaja Suraj Mal, and his grand-father-in-law, Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala), the most interesting will be his own autobiography.
Natwar collects public recognition with an elan all his own. If it's his literary output, then besides writing for some of the most prestigious journals and publishers around the world, it has to be something called the "E.M. Forster Literary Award". If it's his own career as a diplomat, it has to be the most prestigious of postings, the most sensitive of assignments and of course a Padma Bhushan along the way (Mrs Gandhi actually told him "not to let it go to his head"). And if it's politics, it's got to be important ministerships, close advisor to prime ministers (past and those yet waiting in the future), and of course the political equivalent of such appreciation (the very community and people who thrice soundly defeated him, bring him back resoundingly on the fourth attempt, to the present Lok Sabha at the "young age" of 70). No wonder his motto remains "Non Basta Una Vita", one life is not enough.
It is but natural that the largest part of the book should deal with the dynasty whose three generations of prime ministers of Independent India befriended Natwar. The first picked him up from obscurity to positions of unique trust, the second literally adopted his family as her GUPTA own and third (whom he "advised" to enter politics, "India needs you") who gave him more importance than to others senior to him (much to Natwar's later political discomfort). And there is the poignancy of his last meeting with his "benign patron" Indira Gandhi.
A few days before her assassination in October 1984, Natwar met her to tell her he was going to Bharat-pur to start his election campaign, with top priority to acquiring a new wardrobe—khadi kurta pyjama, etc. Mrs Gandhi's last words to Natwar: "Now that you are coming into politics, a thicker skin would be more useful." The best parts undoubtedly are the profiles of literary figures ranging from E.M. Forster to Han Suyin to Nirad Chaudhuri to R.K. Narayan—the best and most disparate literary figures of their times. In his generosity, Natwar ignores/sidesteps the grayer areas of some of these characters.
But then Natwar, the unabashed Anglophile (St Stephen's College in Delhi, Corpus Christi in Cambridge and let's forget all about that little school, what's-its-name, in Gwalior), more than makes up for Forster through Han Suyin, Nirad Chaudhuri and, the best of them all, R.K. Narayan.
A highly readable book but then nothing comes perfect. Perhaps it would have done without the author's Chaplinesque photographs with his subjects or his last pro-file—Nargis Dutt. A pathetic incident in the life of "free India's greatest and most beautiful heroine". Best forgotten. (And as a fellow Stephanian once told me to my face—"all in all, old boy, no mean achievement for a mere Jat.")