STRICTLY PERSONAL: MANMOHAN & GURSHARAN
Daman Singh
HarperCollins
452 pages; Rs 699
Thanks to the huge explosion of uninformed opinion, no other prime minister has had to bear so much hate and, worse, ridicule as Manmohan Singh. How did his family react to this tsunami of abuse, jokes and even insults?
Daman Singh, his daughter - the second of three - shows how in a very nicely written book. You can read it in about six or seven hours.
It is not a biography because so much is missing from it. That will have to wait its turn. It is, quite simply, a doting daughter's ode to a father who lost his way when he accepted the poisoned chalice in 1998.
Its main attraction for those born before 1980 is that so many economists and bureaucrats flit through it. Pleasantly, even though Dr Singh became finance minister in 1991, his new colleagues, the politicians are largely missing from it.
There is no venom in it all. It is a happy and tranquil book. Dr Singh's philosophical acceptance of situations and coping with them - the quality that perhaps defines him best - drips from every page.
No Gah
She asks him questions - recording his answers and that of Mrs Singh - and he answers them factually. But the adjectives and emotions are absent.
Maybe all those snakes he grew up with in the village home of his grandparents had something to do with it. He "would watch his normally unruffled grandmother running out of the house in panic".
An even more revealing quote about such early training in the consequences of non-cooperation comes from a friend in his old village. "If he was reluctant to join in our game, we would toss him into the village pond."
Pond or Parliament, ikkoi gal si.
Does he want to visit Gah? "No, he says mildly. Not really. That's where my grandfather was killed."
But he has some pleasant memories, notably of a "very beautiful girl" of about his age, from Peshawar. He has forgotten her name but remembers that her mother had tuberculosis.
As ever, therefore, the balanced man, including in his economics. He says he refused to take sides between the state control-wallahs and the market-wallahs.
Not quite a Maunmohan
The same balance is visible throughout his life, except perhaps when he was exercising. Daman Singh describes these as only a man's children can.
"Due to unknown reasons, he was unable to regulate the pace of his walk. Once he took off, he would charge forward at top speed ... he exercised in a flurry of flapping arms and legs."
They had a dog and it fell to Dr Singh to take the fellow out at night. He would do so unflinchingly, one hand on the leash and the other, says Ms Singh, "clamped desperately over his turban".
Dr Singh seems to have been a worrier about health. "A cold simply had to be pneumonia, and a twinge of pain anywhere above the waist was surely a heart attack."
Other than his family, the only people he truly felt happy being with were economists. "He also had a sense of humour of sorts. This was evident when he was with friends, even if they were economists." Ha! Nice.
Dr Singh's humour extended to giving people nicknames. One of his relatives who wore pointed turbans was called Chunjwaley in private (chunj means beak in Punjabi) and Mrs Singh was called Gurudev.
"Some of the other names he coined were less charitable," writes Ms Singh. Two other persons to mind in this context: what in heaven could he have called them? We will never know.
1984
In 1973, Dr Singh built a house in North Delhi's Ashok Vihar. Neighbours first envied it and then copied it. Eleven years later, when he was the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor, a mob came to burn it down. It was saved only after his Hindu son-in-law convinced the mob that he had bought it.
Dr Singh came to Delhi for Indira Gandhi's funeral but could not attend it. Daman Singh asked him why not.
"At that time," Dr Singh replies, "I could see houses burning, taxi stands burning."
The dream house was sold in 1986. There is not a word about how the family felt.
In 1985, he was appointed deputy chairman of the Planning Commission. Daman Singh asks him the inevitable question about Rajiv Gandhi's opinion of it but Dr Singh interrupts her before she can complete the sentence.
"I don't think he regarded the Planning Commission as very important." He did offer to resign, though. The offer was not accepted.
The book also clarifies that Dr Singh had offered to resign as governor after the run-in he had with Pranab Mukherjee in 1983. This was over the banking licence to the Bank for Credit and Commerce International (page 314). He wrote about it as far as back 1985. The RBI's history cell should note.
There is one other story that Daman Singh might like to add in a later edition. She should ask her father if he remembers Sharad Marathe's advice about the whisky that was kept in stock for guests in the RBI's Carmichael Road house.
Daman Singh
HarperCollins
452 pages; Rs 699
Thanks to the huge explosion of uninformed opinion, no other prime minister has had to bear so much hate and, worse, ridicule as Manmohan Singh. How did his family react to this tsunami of abuse, jokes and even insults?
Also Read
Daman Singh, his daughter - the second of three - shows how in a very nicely written book. You can read it in about six or seven hours.
It is not a biography because so much is missing from it. That will have to wait its turn. It is, quite simply, a doting daughter's ode to a father who lost his way when he accepted the poisoned chalice in 1998.
Its main attraction for those born before 1980 is that so many economists and bureaucrats flit through it. Pleasantly, even though Dr Singh became finance minister in 1991, his new colleagues, the politicians are largely missing from it.
There is no venom in it all. It is a happy and tranquil book. Dr Singh's philosophical acceptance of situations and coping with them - the quality that perhaps defines him best - drips from every page.
No Gah
She asks him questions - recording his answers and that of Mrs Singh - and he answers them factually. But the adjectives and emotions are absent.
Maybe all those snakes he grew up with in the village home of his grandparents had something to do with it. He "would watch his normally unruffled grandmother running out of the house in panic".
An even more revealing quote about such early training in the consequences of non-cooperation comes from a friend in his old village. "If he was reluctant to join in our game, we would toss him into the village pond."
Pond or Parliament, ikkoi gal si.
Does he want to visit Gah? "No, he says mildly. Not really. That's where my grandfather was killed."
But he has some pleasant memories, notably of a "very beautiful girl" of about his age, from Peshawar. He has forgotten her name but remembers that her mother had tuberculosis.
As ever, therefore, the balanced man, including in his economics. He says he refused to take sides between the state control-wallahs and the market-wallahs.
Not quite a Maunmohan
The same balance is visible throughout his life, except perhaps when he was exercising. Daman Singh describes these as only a man's children can.
"Due to unknown reasons, he was unable to regulate the pace of his walk. Once he took off, he would charge forward at top speed ... he exercised in a flurry of flapping arms and legs."
They had a dog and it fell to Dr Singh to take the fellow out at night. He would do so unflinchingly, one hand on the leash and the other, says Ms Singh, "clamped desperately over his turban".
Dr Singh seems to have been a worrier about health. "A cold simply had to be pneumonia, and a twinge of pain anywhere above the waist was surely a heart attack."
Other than his family, the only people he truly felt happy being with were economists. "He also had a sense of humour of sorts. This was evident when he was with friends, even if they were economists." Ha! Nice.
Dr Singh's humour extended to giving people nicknames. One of his relatives who wore pointed turbans was called Chunjwaley in private (chunj means beak in Punjabi) and Mrs Singh was called Gurudev.
"Some of the other names he coined were less charitable," writes Ms Singh. Two other persons to mind in this context: what in heaven could he have called them? We will never know.
1984
In 1973, Dr Singh built a house in North Delhi's Ashok Vihar. Neighbours first envied it and then copied it. Eleven years later, when he was the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor, a mob came to burn it down. It was saved only after his Hindu son-in-law convinced the mob that he had bought it.
Dr Singh came to Delhi for Indira Gandhi's funeral but could not attend it. Daman Singh asked him why not.
"At that time," Dr Singh replies, "I could see houses burning, taxi stands burning."
The dream house was sold in 1986. There is not a word about how the family felt.
In 1985, he was appointed deputy chairman of the Planning Commission. Daman Singh asks him the inevitable question about Rajiv Gandhi's opinion of it but Dr Singh interrupts her before she can complete the sentence.
"I don't think he regarded the Planning Commission as very important." He did offer to resign, though. The offer was not accepted.
The book also clarifies that Dr Singh had offered to resign as governor after the run-in he had with Pranab Mukherjee in 1983. This was over the banking licence to the Bank for Credit and Commerce International (page 314). He wrote about it as far as back 1985. The RBI's history cell should note.
There is one other story that Daman Singh might like to add in a later edition. She should ask her father if he remembers Sharad Marathe's advice about the whisky that was kept in stock for guests in the RBI's Carmichael Road house.