Etched in memory: As a nine-year-old I waited for a glimpse of Indira Gandhi and waved to her

Word had spread that Indira Gandhi would be driving past our house .  I ran out from the Wesley Church Musheerabad premises, where our family stayed. I stayed put on the road. The cops were all over for her security. Why would a nine-year-old’s mind have the inclination and the interest to go out there and wait for her?

Indira Gandhi was to take the road beside Rahat Mahal theatre (now Raja Deluxe) and proceed towards Ramnagar. This was part of the Musheerabad assembly constituency falling under the Secunderabad Lok Sabha constituency purview. She had come campaigning for the Congress party in the 1977 general elections.

As a child, I would read the newspapers every day. Perhaps this was because my father Chilkuri Samuel, would engross himself in following the day’s news with much interest. From January 1966 to March 1977, Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister of India. I was born in January 1968.  So, reading about her in the newspaper was an everyday affair.

The nine-year-old that was me waited for Indira Gandhi standing on the other side of the road where Sagarlal hospital is located. When she arrived in an open top jeep, I caught a glimpse of the Iron Lady. There were several other leaders with her.

While writing this, I confirmed with my second brother-in-law M Anantha Rao, if he remembered Indira Gandhi’s 1977 visit to Hyderabad. His family stayed at Dayara market on the way to Ramnagar. He pointed out that actress Vyjayantimala Bali was also there along with Indira Gandhi. 

A photograph that I saved from the internet, confirmed this.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi came out a strong woman from the reports that I had read about her in the newspapers. That admiration stuck.  So when she passed by on the road across the place where we stayed, for me, it was a  feeling of achievement.

Having lost the 1977 polls, in October 1978, the then regime arrested her and put her in jail. After her release from the prison, she only grew in strength. The iron-will she had got her a resounding victory in the 1980 elections bringing her back as Prime Minister.

In the 1980 elections, Indira Gandhi chose to contest from Medak Lok Sabha constituency. She had won from Chikmagalur in Karnataka earlier in a by-election in 1978. In 1977, the strong woman that she was, Indira Gandhi was defeated from the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh. I still remember Raj Narain being hailed as a hero for trouncing her.  Raj Narain in headgear as I saw him in photographs remained vivid.

When Indira Gandhi chose to contest from the Medak Lok Sabha constituency, she arrived at the Begumpet  airport. At that time, I was studying in class 8 at Wesley Boy’s High School, Secunderabad. I was also in the Wesley hostel for about a year. This was opposite Anand theatre (which does not exist now). The hostel premises is now a degree college. This was my chance to see Indira Gandhi again. I waited on the road for her. There were scores of people on both sides of the road to welcome her.  This time around, there was more sympathy for Indira Gandhi. 

She had been put in jail by her opponents. It did not quite matter to the aam janta as to why she was sent to jail. It did not go down well that a woman who was Prime Minister was imprisoned. The caged tiger, as they say, unleashed herself again after she was set free.

Not long after, Indira Gandhi’s motorcade arrived from the Begumpet airport. This time too, she was standing in an open top jeep and waved back to the crowd cheering at her with enthusiasm. I was among the crowd which had lined up along the road.  I was happy to see her.  Indira Gandhi went to Medak.  She won from there and became Prime Minister again in 1980.

October 31, 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was killed - in her own house by her security personnel in Delhi. Only two weeks before the incident, she had visited Hyderabad and consoled the victims of communal violence.

The news of Indira Gandhi’s death was difficult to take. The tragic loss was almost personal. The following year on a visit to Delhi, I saw the place where she was gunned down by her guards and remembered her. Today, is the Indira Gandhi’s 34^th death anniversary.  My brother Ch Shyam Rao, an advocate, has more vivid memories of her. As a student, he went to her house in Delhi and has a picture taken with her. 

As for me she’s in my memory.

She is a leader who cannot be forgotten and whose memory cannot be erased.

  

The man wearing a crumpled coat caught my attention. Some noticed him  –  as someone not actually dressed properly  for the occasion. It was an ‘at home’ hosted by President R Venkatraman at the Rashtrapati Nilayam, Bolarum, Hyderabad. The “who’s who” of the city was there. I saw cricketer Mohd Azharuddin. Made small talk with him. But it was the man who was standing aloof, who grabbed my attention. Not one seemed to know him. I did. He was standing out in the motley crowd.

Never mind his crumpled coat. Never mind his unkempt hair. Never mind him being by himself. I walked up to him. He was taken by surprise that someone even seemed to know him. He wasn’t a celebrity. He wasn’t behaving like he was trying to grab attention. He stood there, where he was. Stood apart, would be a better description. We shook hands. He was pretty amused that somebody had recognized him.

Abdul Kalam was heading a defence establishment in Hyderabad as far back as in 1988-89. At that time he wasn’t in the news but those who followed developments were aware who he was. I chatted with Abdul Kalam for some time. There wasn’t much depth in the conversation because of obvious reasons. He could not divulge anything more than required about developments in defence. But the meeting with Kalam was memorable. His simplicity. His disregard for pomp.  He not feeling important, or acting important registered in my mind.

But he wasn’t the simpleton that he looked like. At work, he was cruel to himself.  A friend in the defence establishment told me that even if he had given an appointment to someone to meet him, he would refuse to see that person. The work on hand would always be more important to him, even if it meant not keeping an appointment.

And so it was that someone showed up to meet him at his office. The person waited. And then Kalam sent word through his staff to tell him that he wasn’t available. The person was aghast. He could see the light glowing in Kalam’s room. Members of his staff were going in and coming out after meeting him, and he was being informed that Kalam wasn’t there. The employee who told me this interpreted it in the right context. Work meant everything to Kalam. And if he chose not to exist to some people at that time, he was that raw a person not to even give it a thought as to what the other person would think about it.

Abdul Kalam rose. He went on to become Advisor to Raksha Mantri. Such was the aura surrounding the man and the importance he got in the government. His time was so precious that the government allowed him use of the Indian Air Force aircraft. He once landed in the University of Hyderabad for a convocation function in an IAF helicopter.

After serving the country for many years, Abdul Kalam retired. I met him at a program organized at International School, Tolichowki, Hyderabad. He had come there because his friend Dr Kakarla Subba Rao had invited him.  I happened to sit beside Kalam and we were talking. He spoke about how he wanted to fire the imagination of school students to dream big.

While we spoke, if a student were to pass by, he would pull the lad by his shirt. When the student who would turn to see who tugged his shirt, Kalam would abruptly stop the conversation we were having and ask the child: “Hey you guy, what do you want to become in life?” He did it several times. Whether it was a boy or a girl, his advice would be, “Think big. Dream big.” Just a week later, he got a call from the then Prime Minister Vajpayee when he was on his morning walk in Bangalore. AP CM Chandrababu Naidu too had called him just before that saying that he should not refuse their request to become President of India.  After Vajpayee spoke to him, he agreed. He became President of India. Lives on in the memory of a nation as the “People’s president”.