February 23rd, 1997

1997 - A Love Story Baptised Hindus - The Vadhera Family The sixth scent - Bofors Issue. SAAZ - Movie Report.

Trying to live a normal life, Priyanka chooses a commoner as her life partner. The marriage will be in the best traditions of the Nehru family. and she would rather start a pastry business than enter politics.

SHE : Tall and beautiful, a shutterbug's delight. Commands attention wherever she goes. Belongs to India's first family, which ruled the nation for more than 30 years.

HE : Son of a small-town businessman. Loves fast life and has a passion for dancing. Short and chubby, there is nothing spectacular about him.
When the news of Rajiv Gandhi's daughter marrying a certain Robert Vadhera made headlines early this year, many Indians asked themselves, "Vadhera who?' The answer lay in a photograph, splashed by the newspapers three years ago, of a coy youth sitting beside Priyanka at a fashion show hosted by designer Ashish Soni. The photographers had caught them in romantic moments, eyes locked.
It all began in an Italian home in Delhi. Priyanka, 26, first met Robert, 28, six years ago at a party organised by their Italian friends. They had common friends thanks to his days at the New Delhi British School. There developed an instant liking for each other.
Priyanka, a student at Jesus and Mary College, was at that time beginning to regain some of the freedom she had lost the day two security guards shot her grandmother dead in October 1984.
The shots had ended her right to grow up as a normal child. She came under Z Plus security category; no school, few meetings with friends. For the next five years Priyanka and brother Rahul remained at home, with special tutors to coach them. The only place outside the four walls of the Prime Minister's residence at 7 Race Course Road where they could step out without SPG security was their garden.
Priyanka's childhood was punctuated with violent memories; the accidental death of her uncle, Sanjay' the assassination of her grandmother' and later the tragic death of her father.
Even as a teenager she was aware of death hovering over her family, and Rajiv and Sonia prepared their children to steel themselves mentally. They even drafted identical but separately signed funeral instructions for their children.
Rajiv's instruction read thus: "In the event of my death as well as that of my wife, Sonia, at or about the same time, at the same place or at different places, within or outside India, our bodies should be brought to Delhi and cremated together, in accordance with Hindu rites, in an open ground. In no circumstances should our bodies be burnt in a crematorium. According to our custom, our eldest child Rahul should light the pyre. It is my wish that our ashes should be immersed in the Ganga at Triveni, Allahabad, where my ancestors' ashes have been immersed."
No wonder Priyanka admirably managed the situation after the death of her father. She stood like a rock besides her mother, consoling her and making arrangements for the funeral. She looked every inch her formidable grandmother, stoic and composed.
The similarity did not go unnoticed. The then Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto said Priyanka had the strong character and dignity of her grandmother. The New York Times called her "India's new heroine".
Her strength of character was on display when it came to marriage. Like her grandmother she made her own choice and convinced her family about it.
ROBERT, who lives in Delhi's New Friend's Colony with his mother and sister, seems every bit an ordinary young man who is soft-spoken and poised. As he starts talking the mask of ordinariness slips. "He is frank and open, nice and vibrant," said a Nehru family associate.
Still, how could a commoner be charming enough for a person like Priyanka? "Please understand that she is a person trying to lead a normal life in the most unnatural circumstances," said a family source. "She is unassuming and unpretentious, a person of simple habits, very bright and always cheerful. She has firm belief in her right to privacy, and she chose the partner of her liking."
Though the couple used to attend parties and dance together at the Oasis discotheque in Delhi, the affair was made public only recently. Their movement was largely confined to their close circles. "It seemed that they would get married. but we had no idea when it would happen," said a Vadhera family member. The decision on the marriage was taken a few weeks ago by the Nehru family. "Basically it was their decision," said the source.
The Nehru family has decided to keep the marriage a strictly private affair. The guest list is limited to 150 - only close relatives and friends, apart from the President, Vice-President, Prime Minister, Congress president and some constitutional functionaries. Other friends got cards informing them of the marriage and seeking their blessings.
Simeran, the 15-month-old daughter of Robert's brother Richard, will be the only child around. Children, the Vadheras were told, would be difficult to control.
The civil marriage at 10 Janpath, on the evening of February 18, will follow semi-Vedic rites and the entrance to the bride's residence will be decorated with banana trees and tender coconuts, in the south Indian style. Priyanka is expected to wear the same khadi wedding sari that her mother and grandmother had worn at their weddings, and clothes an embroidered pink lehnga, at the receptions at 10 Janpath and Hilton.
The Nehru family does not want the marriage to be a mega event and is annoyed about the hostile media reports on Priyanka's house hunt. Amid the controversy a bungalow at 35 Lodhi Estate is getting ready for the couple.
"On February 18 Priyanka Gandhi will become Priyanka Vadhera. The change of surname has immense significance," said a source close to 10 Janpath. "Priyanka has opted out of the race for succession," said a political analyst.
She will certainly help her husband in his business. Robert runs a small-scale costume jewellery export firm, Artex, on the outskirts of Delhi. The firm also designs jewellery and Priyanka lends him a helping hand. Earlier she was doing the designing work at her home but now she frequently visit his office.
Though Artex is a small-scale unit Robert is optimistic of his business prospects. "Business is in his blood. That is why after taking his O and A levels from the British School he straight away joined his father's business without bothering about higher studies," said his family sources.
Few believe that she would enter politics in the near future. Priyanka, who could have become Youth Congress president at 21 or MP at 25, will most probably start a pastry and pista business. She loves cooking, like Robert's mother Maureen.
Priyanka knows best to chart the course of her life. After all, the dissertation for her Psychology Honors was on 'functional relevance of belief in managing life events.'
LIFE EVENTS in the Nehru family have often been subject of dis-agreement. Motilal Nehru, with all his modern only a Kashmiri. The very notion of mixed blood was repugnant to him, and he once confessed to his son that he would bot be able to love grandchildren of mixed parentage. Motilal, however, allowed his daughters to marry outside the narrow circle of Kashmiri Brahmins.
Motilal's decision made Jawaharlal feel miserable. "I do not, and cannot possibly, look forward with relish to the idea of marrying a girl whom I don't know," Jawaharlal wrote to his father when he received news that Motilal had chosen a bride for him. "If you are intent on my getting engaged to the girl you mentioned I have no objection. I shall abide by your decision."
He poured out his heart to his mother in another letter: "Would you like me to marry a girl whom I may not like for the rest of my life or who may not like me? It would be better for me not to marry at all...I accept that the girl selected by you and father would be good in many respects, but still I may not be able to get along well with her..... In my opinion unless there is a degree of mutual understanding marriage should not take place. I think it is unjust and cruel that a life should be wasted merely in producing children."
The wedding, in Delhi, was an elaborate affair which lasted nine days. A special train brought friends and relatives from his home town Allahabad where the festivities went on for several weeks. The groom wore a white sherwani, a typical Muslim outfit and symbol of the secular outlook of the Nehru family. Kamala was dressed the traditional Kashmiri way: flowers, ornaments and pale pink sari.
As described by Jawaharlal's younger sister Krishna, Kamala was "Sixteen and very lovely' slim and rather tall for an Indian girl, with typically fair skin of Brahmins of Kashmiri descent. Her hair was dark brown and she had large brown eyes and a very gentle disposition. She had large brown eyes and a very gentle disposition. She was one of the most beautiful women I knew or ever had known."
Jawaharlal, the Cambridge educated barrister, could not adjust with Kamala, a girl of simple manners. Even in the three years they really lived together, 1916 to 1919, he adopted a semi-forgetful attitude towards her and it was virtual oblivion after he joined the freedom struggle. Kamala withdrew into a shell, went reluctantly to Switzerland for tuberculosis treatment and died young. She was only 36.
In Nehru's 600-page autobiography, the chapter on his marriage is only two pages, and the actual reference to it is just two sentences! "My marriage took place in 1916 in the city of Delhi. It was on the Vasanta Panchami day which heralds the coming of spring in India." Kamala is not even named in the chapter. And it turned out to be the last arranged marriage in the Nehru family.
Jawaharlal was, at heart, a romantic but when Indira fell in love with Feroze Gandhi, the father gently cautioned her that the difference in their social status might lead to problems later. Nehru wrote: " One marries a person, not a family, yet one cannot ignore it either." Feroze was the son of a Parsi shopkeeper.
Feroze was devoted to Kamala, who was among the Congress workers who picketed his college. He sat on a wall laughing at them, but rushed to her when she collapsed of exhaustion and took her to Anand Bhavan. There he met the adolescent Indira and became a frequent visitor.
After the death of her mother at the Lausanne sanitarium, Indira remained in Europe and later joined Oxford. Feroze by that time had landed in London on a scholarship.
"One reason for choosing Oxford was that Feroze was in England," Indira wrote about the affair. "I considered him more as a fried; it was a link with my family and India.... He had proposed to me already before I went to Santiniketan, but I had said no. He had told my mother about this. I went to Paris and Feroze joined me there. That is when I finally said yes, on the steps of Montmartre. But we didn't tell anyone." Indira liked Feroze's openness, self-confidence and his sense of humour.
Nehru did not like the idea of his daughter marrying Feroze and sought Mahatma Gandhi's help to dissuade her. She was adamant. When the marriage plan was leaked to the press there was a hue and cry from orthodox Brahmins who considered it an insult to let Indira marry a Parsi
Finally both Nehru and Gandhiji had to come out with press statements supporting the marriage. Gandhiji said, "It would have been cruel to refuse consent to their engagement. As time advances such unions are bound to multiply with benefit to the society."
The pomp and splendour that marked Nehru's wedding was missing as Indira and Feroze got married on Ramanavami day (March 22, 1942). Indira had wanted to keep it a strictly private function but Gandhiji cautioned her that people would misinterpret that the Nehrus were ashamed of the alliance. Yet Anand Bhavan was only modestly decorated, and the guest list was kept short. It consisted of close relatives and friends, local nationalist leaders and two foreigners : Sir Stafford Cripps, who was in India on a mission, and the daughter of Marie Curie.
The marriage ceremony was according to semi-orthodox Vedic rites. Indira was nervous. During dinner she said to Sir Stafford Cripps: "Do have some potato cripps."
The couple began drifting apart soon after the marriage, first physically, then mentally. They lived in Lucknow, where Feroze was managing the affairs of the National Herald. When Nehru became the interim Prime Minister, Indira moved to Delhi along with her children, Rajiv and Sanjay, to be her father's official hostess and housekeeper.
That made their love glacial. Even after Feroze moved to Delhi on becoming a member of Parliament his relationship with his wife remained cold. he became a bitter critic of both the father and daughter in parliament, and smoked and freak heavily. Indira attempted reconciliation and the family had a long holiday in the mountains. A little more than a month after that happy reunion Feroze died of a heart attack.
The least turbulent of all love affairs in the family was Rajiv's. "As our eyes met for the first time I could feel my heart pounding," Sonia wrote about her first introduction through a common friend to Rajiv at Varsity, a Greek restaurant in Cambridge. "We greeted each other and, as far as I was concerned, it was love at first sight. It was for him too, as he later told me...." It was in 1965. Sonia was just 18.
The girl from Italy had only a vague idea about India which existed somewhere with its snakes, elephants and jungles. but nothing mattered but her love for Rajiv. "He was striking in both looks and manners...He was reserved, more gentle (than the boys in his group). He had big, black eyes and a wonderfully innocent and disarming smile," Sonia was to write later.
Rajiv introduced her to his mother when she was in London on an official visit. Sonia and Indira developed an instant liking for each other and they kept that special relationship till the end.
Rajiv met Sonia' father Signor Maino, the owner of a small construction firm, at Orbassano in Italy. Maino was initially hesitant, even though awestruck by Rajiv's lineage, to send his daughter to India but he agreed to do so, if they still loved each other after a year of separation.
She arrived in India on January 13, 1968 and the wedding was at 1, Safdarjung Road. Wearing the pale pink khadi sari that Indira had worn for her own wedding, Sonia exchanged rings and garlands with Rajiv, who was in a white sherwani. The reception at Hyderabad House was simple; the guest sat on the floor and ate Kashmiri vegetarian meal.
If Indira liked Sonia at one glance, she had an instant dislike of Maneka, a colonel's daughter and part-time model whom Sanjay Gandhi had met at a wedding. However, he could persuade Indira to give her consent to their marriage.
The wedding was conducted at the residence of Mohammed Yunus, a Nehru family loyalist, in the presence of a little over 30 people. Sanjay, too, wore a white sherwani and Maneka, the same pale pink khadi sari. Indira was tolerant of Maneka while Sanjay was alive; she showed the daughter-in-law the door not long after he died in a plane crash.
The marriages of Jawaharlal's daughter and grandchildren had the common thread of love and khadi. And they married beneath station. Priyanka, too, walks down the same aisle of tradition.

N.V. MOHAN

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