Daughter of vijaya lakshmi pandit marriage
Excerpt | Out of Line
On 2 January 1949, Tara Pandit, twenty-one years old and second daughter of Vijaya Lakshmi and Ranjit Sitaram Pandit, was married to Gautam Sahgal, then twenty-five, in her ancestral home, Anand Bhawan, Allahabad. The bride looked exquisite in a primrose yellow sari of fine khaddar, flower jewellery in her hair, her ears and around her neck. No gold-bedecked rich silks or family jewels for this child of the freedom movement, just Mahatma Gandhi’s finely spun khadi, embellished with nothing more than a thin gold border. (Seven years earlier, her cousin, Indira, had worn a shell-pink khadi sari, hand-spun by her father, Jawaharlal, and trimmed with silver, at her wedding.) The groom was dashing and handsome, a child not so much of the freedom movement as of the partition of the country that followed in its wake. The Sahgals were a prominent Lahore family of professionals displaced to Delhi, like millions of Punjabis from across the border, having left behind agricultural land, urban property and other considerable assets, in the hope that they would return. As that possibility began to recede they set about re-establishing themselves in Delhi, determined to regain the social and economic status they had enjoyed in Punjab. But the bitter undertow of Partition, and of dislocation and loss, remained.
Tara Pandit could hardly have chosen a partner whose background and temperament were so completely at variance with her own, but their attraction to each other had been immediate and electric, and they made an extremely striking couple. Introduced to each other by Tara’s aunt, Fori Nehru (who stayed with the Sahgals when she first came out to India from Hungary), they met at the Delhi Gymkhana Club on 9 December 1947, very soon after Tara’s return from the US. She had just graduated in history from Wellesley College and was staying with her uncle, Jawaharlal Nehru, on York Road. Gautam was employed with the engineering company of Bird & Co.
Nayantara Sahgal
Indian writer (born 1927)
Nayantara Sahgal ( nee' Pandit) (born 10 May 1927) is an Indian writer who writes in English. She is a member of the Nehru–Gandhi family, the second of the three daughters born to Jawaharlal Nehru's sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit.
She was awarded the 1986 Sahitya Akademi Award for her English novel Rich Like Us (1985).
Early life
Sahgal's father Ranjit Sitaram Pandit was a barrister from Kathiawad. Pandit was also a classical scholar who had translated Kalhana's epic history Rajatarangini into English from Sanskrit. He was arrested for his support of Indian independence and died in Lucknow prison jail in 1944, leaving behind his wife (Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit) and their three daughters Chandralekha Mehta, Nayantara Sehgal and Rita Dar.
Sahgal's mother, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, was the daughter of Motilal Nehru and sister of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Vijaya Lakshmi had been active in the Indian freedom struggle, had been to jail for this cause and in 1946, was part of the first team representing newly formed India that went to the then newly formed United Nations, along with M.C.Chagla. After India achieved independence, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit served as a member of India's Constituent Assembly, the governor of several Indian states, and as India's ambassador to the Soviet Union, the United States, Mexico, the Court of St. James, Ireland, and the United Nations.
Sahgal attended a number of schools as a girl, given the turmoil in the Nehru family during the last years (1935–47) of the Indian freedom struggle. Ultimately, she graduated from Woodstock School in the Himalayan hill station of Mussoorie in 1943 and later in the United States from Wellesley College (BA, 1947), which she attended along with her sister Chandralekha, who graduated 2 years earlier in 1945. She has ma
Motilal Nehru opposed Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit’s affair with Syed Hossain. Even Gandhi intervened
“It is the view of the attendant lords, the courtesans, who witnessed everything, understood it but also believed things could be done in a different way: A view of large events from the periphery gives you greater, more interesting stories,” the author said about his new work.
Circles of Freedom is a history book but not exactly a historical account of the freedom movement, Raghavan told former diplomat Navtej Sarna at the beginning of the discussion, which saw politicians, journalists, diplomats, authors, history enthusiasts, as well as Raghavan’s family and school and college friends.
Extra chairs had to be arranged to accommodate an audience of nearly 150 people, which included senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, former diplomat and IIC president Shyam Saran, columnist C Raja Mohan, and journalist AK Bhattacharya.
Love, friendship, freedom
Revolving around the lives of Sarojini Naidu, Asaf Ali, Syed Hossain, Syed Mahmood and Aruna Asaf Ali, the book highlights instances of love and friendship within the circle. A significant part of the book talks about Asaf and Aruna’s relationship, and how their marriage was affected after Asaf went underground to escape arrest during the freedom struggle.
“My book also encapsulates the Left and its contribution to some extent,” said Raghavan.
Aruna’s approach to the freedom struggle embodied the Left. She was much younger than the rest of the lot and quite radical. She was vocal and wanted quick results as opposed to the “Gandhian way” of resistance.
This stance created cracks in her marriage with Asaf, who was a major Gandhian.
On why he chose this specific group of friends, Raghavan cited a letter written by Naidu in London, which mentioned two of her friends, Asaf Ali and Syed Hossain, who did almost everything together.
“I thought, why not follow this story?”
Also read:Sarojini Naidu was Indian freedom fighter, diplomat and politician (1900–1990) Vijay Lakshmi Pandit (néeSwarupNehru; 18 August 1900 – 1 December 1990) was an Indian freedom fighter, diplomat and politician. She served as the 8th President of the United Nations General Assembly from 1953 to 1954, the first woman and the only Indian to have been appointed to this post. She was also the 3rd Governor of Maharashtra from 1962 to 1964. Noted for her participation in the Indian independence movement, she was jailed several times during the movement. In 1944, she visited the United States to raise awareness about the Indian affairs among the American people in order to counter the anti-Indian propaganda there. Following the independence of India, she was sent to London as India's most important diplomat after serving as India's envoy to the Soviet Union, the United States and the United Nations. Hailing from the prominent Nehru-Gandhi political family, her brother Jawaharlal Nehru was the first Prime Minister of independent India, her niece Indira Gandhi was the first female Prime Minister of India and her grand-nephew Rajiv Gandhi was the sixth and youngest Prime Minister of India. Vijaya Lakshmi's (born Swarup) father, Motilal Nehru (1861–1931), a wealthy barrister who belonged to the Kashmiri Pandit community, served twice as President of the Indian National Congress during the Independence Struggle. Her mother, Swaruprani Thussu (1868–1938), who came from a well-known Kashmiri Pandit family settled in Lahore, was Motilal's second wife, the first having died in child birth. She was the second of three children; Jawaharlal was eleven years her senior (b. 1889), while her younger sister Krishna Hutheesing (1907–1967) became a noted writer and authored several books on their brother. She attended the 1916 Congress session that took place in Lucknow. She was impressed by S
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit
Early life
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