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Given the controversies over Pratibha Patil’s post-retirement home in Pune, the current incumbent of Rashtrapati Bhavan would have done well to emulate one of her distinguished predecessors, the Indian republic’s first President Rajendra Prasad. Dr Prasad spent the longest time of all independent India’s presidents in the sumptuous luxury of the former vice-regal palace on Raisina Hill. But after his 12-year stint as head of state, there was no luxurious government-provided retirement villa for him. Instead, when he retired in 1962, he opted to live in a small house on the campus of Bihar Vidyapeeth in Patna. Originally an old house with a thatched roof, Jayprakash Narayan raised some funds through volunteers to build a more permanent but equally modest structure near the Vidyapeeth’s mango grove. This is where Dr Prasad lived till his death in 1963. True, once it became clear that her retirement home would have deprived war widows, Ms Patil did forego the land. But the fact that the head of state should have been involved in such a dispute in the first place hardly enhanced the dignity of the office she holds.