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All These Years
PERSONALIZED AT PUBLIC PEOPLE AND POLITICAL EVENTS THAT SHAPED INDIAN HISTORY OVER 40 YEARS SINCE INDEPENDENCE.
472 pages, Paperback
Published February 1, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 25, 2023
Must read, how rootless indian urban communist ideoulogue were, how they captured academia and media in 60s-70s and beginning of rule of Indira gandhi
May 15, 2020
Raj Thapar was a journalist, theater practitioner, who, along with her husband Romesh Thapar, were part of the "Kitchen Cabinet" of Mrs G, Madam (used in the book). Raj died at the age of 60 in 1987. This book, a memoir, is a result of a diary that she kept for 20 years (around 1967 ~ 1987), but the memoir begins well before this timeline, because Raj was still alive while she worked on this book and requested her daughter Malavika and son-in-law Tejbir (who now run Seminar, a publication monthly which she co-founded with her husband) to not edit a single word. Just after her death, Romesh also died in a few months. Leaving the work to an in-house Seminar editor, who also died just after working on the book. No, there's no foul play here. It's how life is. Both Malavika and Tejbir were now tasked to finish this, which they did, and the book came our in 1991.
This book is probably the most frank memoir or a work that describes a life lived to the fullest, and lived so unabashedly and unafraid from people with position and power. Both Raj and Romesh were advisers of the PM Indira Gandhi. And she frankly says in her book that during Emergency both of them realized what a "monster" has been made out of them for they never approved of cold and shrewd Indira, but were naive to trust her.
I would probably never learn so much about Indira and the clan of people who floundered around the PM had I not read this memoir. However frank it seems like there's always a sign or the other that the author leaves that makes you question the authenticity, not of the work but of this faculty known as the brain - you're selective when you're writing a memoir, for memory is a choice. She also chooses to hide her relative Tejbir's uncle, the great writer Khushwant Singh, who supported the Emergency, and was perhaps among the few journalists who're not put behind bars. But she questions and thrashes all the others alike, and expresses deepest concerns about her own friendship with so many people.
Beginning to tell her life from the gay days of Bombay, those Marxist meetings - I knew from the start that she'll realize that all these people were upper-caste and upper-class, rich opportunists; which she did, but much later - and theater days make an exciting read. You often get a feeling that it's a work of fiction for there are so many things that she and Romesh were able to do because of their privilege, yet she failed to acknowledge it, as she time and again tried to color themselves as the "middle class." I wonder how many of us dine with the PM twice a day and call themselves "powerless," perhaps a better introspection was necessary and better editing toward the end.
It's clear toward the end around 400th page that this racy pace is because she's ill and entries from her diaries were picked at random or as is and pasted in the book with usual ice-breaker "As my diary entry from Oct.." That's the only thing that I think I didn't like, yes, one more thing, there's no mention of the Operation Blue Star, given that Raj died in 1987 this merited a chapter or at least a para, which wasn't there and everything happening in the country was concluded in the last chapter - a single long paragraph, and every event well punctuated like we are preparing a grocery list.
All in all, a remarkable work that we should preserve to understand our past. You'll try to respect a few people way less than you are or used to. Must read.
This book is probably the most frank memoir or a work that describes a life lived to the fullest, and lived so unabashedly and unafraid from people with position and power. Both Raj and Romesh were advisers of the PM Indira Gandhi. And she frankly says in her book that during Emergency both of them realized what a "monster" has been made out of them for they never approved of cold and shrewd Indira, but were naive to trust her.
I would probably never learn so much about Indira and the clan of people who floundered around the PM had I not read this memoir. However frank it seems like there's always a sign or the other that the author leaves that makes you question the authenticity, not of the work but of this faculty known as the brain - you're selective when you're writing a memoir, for memory is a choice. She also chooses to hide her relative Tejbir's uncle, the great writer Khushwant Singh, who supported the Emergency, and was perhaps among the few journalists who're not put behind bars. But she questions and thrashes all the others alike, and expresses deepest concerns about her own friendship with so many people.
Beginning to tell her life from the gay days of Bombay, those Marxist meetings - I knew from the start that she'll realize that all these people were upper-caste and upper-class, rich opportunists; which she did, but much later - and theater days make an exciting read. You often get a feeling that it's a work of fiction for there are so many things that she and Romesh were able to do because of their privilege, yet she failed to acknowledge it, as she time and again tried to color themselves as the "middle class." I wonder how many of us dine with the PM twice a day and call themselves "powerless," perhaps a better introspection was necessary and better editing toward the end.
It's clear toward the end around 400th page that this racy pace is because she's ill and entries from her diaries were picked at random or as is and pasted in the book with usual ice-breaker "As my diary entry from Oct.." That's the only thing that I think I didn't like, yes, one more thing, there's no mention of the Operation Blue Star, given that Raj died in 1987 this merited a chapter or at least a para, which wasn't there and everything happening in the country was concluded in the last chapter - a single long paragraph, and every event well punctuated like we are preparing a grocery list.
All in all, a remarkable work that we should preserve to understand our past. You'll try to respect a few people way less than you are or used to. Must read.
June 4, 2022
The memories of envious people: they want what the others have. They are not exactly ready to rob the others, but if possible somebody else should do the deed for them.
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