Sunday, February 16, 2003		Books

Heart to Heart
by K. Natwar Singh. Rupa and Co, New Delhi. Pages 302. Rs 395.

WE know their names, have seen their photographs and want to know more about them. Prominent personalities like Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, Mother Teresa, Queen Elizabeth, K. R. Narayan, Octavio Paz, E. M. Forster and others have been very much part of our collective mindscape for decades, and there is always a craving for more information about them.

This is where K. Natwar Singh comes in. He has been meeting the high and mighty for most of his life. He has also been penning down his experiences, which have been published in many magazines and newspapers. This collection is based on the articles written over the past 17 years.

Natwar Singh read R. K. Narayan on the recommendation of E. M. Forster. He read The English Teacher, an autobiographical account, and met Narayan at his home in Mysore during the Bharat darshan that is compulsory for all Civil Services probationers. Natwar Singh narrates the story of a meeting between Jawaharlal Nehru and Narayan: "How do I greet him? Will he shake hands with me or should I fold my hands? The mechanics of life defeat me," confessed the famous author, who comes out so human in these pages. His accidental meeting with Chinese author Han Suyin began a 33-year association. Natwar Singh’s account of his encounters with Octavio Paz is interesting, even though it comes, like certain other articles, in the form of a book review. Some of the pieces like those on Krishan Kant and Madhavrao Scindia are obituaries, which only makes the recollections more poignant.

Even for someone who has been there and reported on an event, at times certain revealing information brings forth new dimensions. As this reviewer stood with other American journalists outside the White House on the famous Black Tuesday of October 20, 1987, we had no idea Nein Chang’s book Life and Death in Shanghai was the topic of conversation in which the Indian side scored points over their American counterparts, as narrated by Natwar Singh. It seems that the Wall Street crash didn’t form but a footnote during the lunch, and President Ronald Regan did not even appear worried or pre-occupied during the meal. One recalls that at the post-lunch Press briefing by the American President and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, a journalist shouted a question at President Regan asking him about the crash, and all that the US President did was shrug his shoulders and walk away in an impressive demonstration of sang-froid.

Natwar Singh’s articles on Indira Gandhi are expectedly rich with detail and give a human face to the lady who reached the pinnacle of power in India and made a major impact on the international scene. Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi also feature, the former in a number of threads and of course in the one on E. M. Forster—there is a passionate plea for Indians to acknowledge their debt to Forster as he had done so vis-à-vis them.

This is not a book that should be read at one go. You need to dip into it, savour the delicious vignettes and mull over them. Most anthologies lack coherence and here, too, continuity takes a back seat as K. Natwar Singh segues from one personality to the other, and the themes hold attention to a varying degree, depending on the reader’s interest in the person being discussed. This is a book that one will refer to from time to time.