Even The Jasper Blooms

I walk up the gravel path to the government guest house at Chasma Shahi inSrinagar with my mother. The promise of a meeting with Chacha Nehru could get aseven year old going early in the morning in those days. We are greeted by alady arranging cut branches in a large bowl. She does not approve of the guesthouse - "big, cold and ugly," she says. She smiles at me and tells my motherto go in. Holding out her hand, she asks, "To aap mere saath bahar chalenge?"Will you come out with me?

The next ten minutes are spent in the garden. The lady is talking to thegardeners but she takes the trouble to engage me as well. "Do you know thecolours before they bloom?" "Will these bulbs last in Delhi’s heat?" Mymother returns, the lady bids me goodbye and tells me to come back and see thegarden in bloom. What I remember most from this first meeting with Indira Gandhiis her dislike of government architecture and her ‘no fuss’ approach towardsme.

I met her again, over the years, but it was a cultural project that reallybrought me in close contact with her, at a time when she was coming to her ownas India’s prime minister. Quick to gauge the public mood and bend rules, Mrs.Gandhi decided to change the Republic Day parade into a more people-driven, lessofficious festival. Ebrahim Alkazi of the National School of Drama was asked todirect it but Shanta Gandhi, who had no love lost for Alkazi, wanted her ownstamp on the event. She asked me to prepare designs for the floats, and I drewout a few ideas that could help break the usual format of ‘jhankies’ pulledby tractors. My sketches were colourful, cocky, and casual - but they got hercurious and excited, and were translated into reality. It was wonderful for ayoung brat like me to have a top politician understand my language. 

The other project which brought me in close contact with her was was theHealth and Family Planning Pavilion for the Asiad ’72, called Ek Yatra.Mrs.Gandhi got on to the space craft I had built, which had a rather precariousmoving platform - she felt unstable and held my arm. Later, of course I waspushed out by her entourage of officials. But I noticed how good she was atshooing away photographers and hangers-on with the terse remark, "Either yousee or let me see."

We remember great souls by their brief encounters with us. Personalencounters with them become milestones in our lives. But what about them whomeet thousands of people, each with his or her own story? When Mrs Gandhi waslooking at you she would focus, but her eyes would also look beyond. Was theresomething else she was seeing? I always felt that the silent gaze allowed her toenter her own space in the middle of a meeting.

I had the privilege to work with Mrs Gandhi again, when the concept for theFestival of India was being thrashed out. She understood so well the need for acultural policy with a broader canvas of concern. She understood the connectionsbetween our past and our future, of the arts with the sciences; the need tobridge the divide between city and village, East and the West. These werelessons Mrs.Gandhi had learnt well from the teachings of her father. It all cametogether as a strategic game-plan for a policy of cultural diplomacy thatcarried her distinctive stamp. Her close confident Dorothy Norman, with whom Ibecame good friends in New York during the Festival of India in the US, observedthat Mrs. Gandhi had an impeccable sense of housekeeping. We would often speakof her excellent eye for décor, and I have a few personal encounters to relate.

I’d just returned from the success of the Aditi exhibition for the Festivalof India in the UK. Natwar Singh met me at Mrs. Jayakar’s and spoke to usabout the coming Commonwealth and Non-aligned Heads of State conferences. Thesewere to be held in Delhi over a span of six months, putting unprecedentedpressure on our airports. A special ceremonial lounge had to be created tocontain delegations of visiting heads of state, some of whom didn’t want tobump into each other. I thought about Gandhiji wanting India to be like a roomwith all its doors and windows open, capable of withstanding all the winds ofthe world and yet not getting swept off its feet. The doors and windows of Indiawould become the leitmotif for my décor, and I would add crafted pigeons anddoves sitting here and there as harbingers of peace.

Mrs.Gandhi heard me out patiently, chuckling when I suggested puttingGujarati Chabutras (ornately carved homes for pigeons put up in thepublic squares of Gujarat) at the entrances; but when I wondered aloud if thispigeon play might not attract birds to the terrace, she immediately sent forRajiv to get his opinion. She was visibly excited while showing him our planand, fortunately, Rajiv approved. "Don’t be silly, mummy," he saidaffectionately, telling her not to worry about painted pigeons being a flighthazard!

The execution of the lounge was completed in a record time of six weeks andMrs. Gandhi went to see it one night. Her handwritten note to Pupul Jayakar,penned at midnight when she had far more pressing issues issues to worry about (there had been a massacre in the Northeast that morning) shows why artists cannever forget her:

"The special Airport lounge done by Rajeev Sethi is so beautiful and typically Indian. Do you think we could have colour photographs taken and an interesting write-up done for interior decoration or other magazines ? We haven’t any such in India but I am sure American or British magazines would be interested.!"

Indira

Midnight 5.3.1983

A little while later, I was asked to look at the interior design of the PM’splane. Mrs.Gandhi was going to Madras and I was told to join her on that theflight. I asked if I could quietly observe her at work while flying withoutdisturbing her. When I walked into her cabin, Mrs.Gandhi was seated behind adesk on a large chair propped up by cushions. She had a low black trunk low onone side of her, and there were too many files on her small table. There wasnothing distinctive or pleasant about the interiors but I didn’t think itproper to start a conversation until I had some solutions to offer. I watched,and occasionally scribbled irrelevant notes to show I was working. Watching her,I felt I was seeing a vision of an extraordinary person - tiny in frame - flyinghigh above the country she led, her demeanour serious, imperial and alone.Suddenly, Mrs. Gandhi looked up and smiled mischievously, put her pen down, andasked, "So what are you observing?" Taken aback at having my ‘invisible’cloak yanked off, I blurted, "Are you comfortable… in that chair?".Sensing my nervousness, she started to look at her files again, and whileworking asked "You mean - metaphorically?" She wasn’t smiling, nor was I."No! No". I said, "I mean all those cushions… why do you have them?"She said she knew of no chair she had ever sat on that her back had liked, andtalked of how, from an ergonomical point of view, cushions were the bestadjuncts to bad design. Holding up the cushions supporting her back, she lookedup and smiled again. "These too, could be metaphorical you know!" I havesince cursed myself for being too tongue-tied to avail of the finest opportunityto start a meaningful conversation with a woman I had seen becoming larger thanlife almost before my eyes.

The day Mrs. Gandhi was assassinated I was sitting 10 houses away, silent andalone with J.Krishnamurthi. Mrs. Jayakar had rushed to the hospital. The air wasthick with uncertainty. The great sage was uneasy. He squeezed my arm and askedme to go to Mrs Gandhi’s Safdarjung Road house and find out where Pupul was. Iarrived, and waited for someone to show up. The place was deserted with hardlyany security. Rajiv drove in, got out of the car and went back to shut thewooden gate of the house himself… no security! Then he walked across thegravel drive way and I was able to hug him.

My thoughts often go back to Mrs. Gandhi and the alchemy shared so brieflythrough design. She knew so many master craftsmen by name and they knew they hadaccess to her. The craftsmen, like her, belong to a special world - a worlddefined only by the pursuit of excellence perfection and by the evolution ofskill.

I stand at Shakti Sthal, in front of the large red rock mined in Orissa whereMrs. Gandhi gave her last speech "My last drop of blood…" A hard stone -jasper, with veins of iron ore and hematite - stands like an obelisk marking thesite of Mrs. Gandhi’s memorial. Fragile flowerbeds on grass mounds of earth,dotted by tenacious rocks and trees reluctant to send deep roots, surround me. Iask the gardener, "Will the flowers will survive Delhi’s heat?" Andremember my first encounter with her, when I was seven years old.

(This is an abridged version of a tribute to Indira Gandhi on her 88th birth anniversary)