Page 161 - EW December 2023

books

a charmed life memoirs of a maverick way station who had risen

— the first fifty years to the position of chief
minister of Gujarat and
(1941-91)
hErE IS aN Mani Shankar Aiyar president of the BJP — was
element of more qualified to serve tea
tprankishness, Juggernaut at Congress party head-
reminiscent of the classic rs.899 Pages 379 quarters in Delhi, than as
Tom Brown’s School Days prime minister of India,
in Mani Shankar Aiyar’s cost the Congress millions
Memoirs of a Maverick of votes in General Elec-
which details the first nathan Aiyar to move to tion 2014, when the Grand
50 years (1941-91) of his Simla where the children autobiography of an Old party’s tally of seats in
privileged life. schooled in Welham Prep effortlessly superior the Lok Sabha plummeted
One of four children for young boys prepar- worthy who served from 206 in 2009 to 44 in
of an upper caste Tamil ing for admission into in the iFS for 26 years 2014.
Brahmin (Tambram) who the prestigious The Doon prior to retiring and Memoirs of a Maverick
after graduation in physics School. This was funded resurfacing with a — the First Fifty Years is
from Madras University by Aiyar Sr whose career new career in politics the autobiography of this
was so annoyed about the as a chartered accountant effortlessly superior wor-
lack of job opportunities by Partition, had revived in thy who served the country
to Tambrams because of Delhi. As a result the fam- graduated from Doon for 26 years in plush post-
reverse discrimination of ily, stuck in a one-room School, was admitted into ings abroad starting with
the anti-Brahmin move- apartment, was awarded the top-ranked St. Ste- Brussels and Geneva, and
ment in Madras state, that a “commodious apart- phen’s College, Delhi and in somewhat more testing
he took “a train that would ment” by Seth Ramkrishna Cambridge University, assignments in Hanoi and
take him as far as he could Dalmia, one of Aiyar Sr’s UK and inducted in the Karachi, besides three
get from Madras”. He principal clients, in Delhi. Indian Foreign Service, ministries in Delhi prior
joined a Tambram char- As Aiyar tells it, he was personifies Lutyen’s Delhi. to retiring and resurfac-
tered accountancy firm in never a shiny penny, but in Well-travelled and ever ing with a new career in
Lahore. Mani Shankar was his student years and later well-equipped with Limey- politics.
born in that city, now in in his career, he always style class and racial Although it recounts
Pakistan. In Lahore, Aiyar had a fairy godmother put-downs that pass for the ups and downs of
senior prospered to the ex- or godfather — the right humour in Blighty, Mani an evidently upper class
tent that he “took no time connections — who helped Shankar embodies the individual having to serve
at all to become a living him acquire a blue-chip smug caste, class, educa- under various ambassa-
legend in his profession”. education and rise in the tion and establishment dors and civil servants who
His mother Bhagyalakshmi foreign service and later elitism that infuriates the took to him and others
was also well-qualified as a in Indian politics. It’s this subaltern classes who have who were his educational
teacher in London, no less. old boys network which to struggle mightily for and social inferiors, it’s
Mani confesses that his in recent years has earned social upward mobility. difficult to empathise
parents didn’t get along the description of Lutyen’s But while his effortless with an individual who in
and his mother found Delhi — a charmed circle superiority largely worked those difficult years when
excuses to live apart. Thus, of privileged English-fluent to his benefit, it has often citizens venturing abroad
Aiyar Amma (mother) and elite who constituted the cost Mani and later the were entitled to purchase
the children were in Simla Delhi establishment and Congress party into which $5, was enjoying well-paid
on vacation on August 15, dominated the bureau- he was smoothly absorbed foreign postings.
1947 when aiyar Appa (fa- cracy, media and corporate courtesy his shared back- The travails Aiyar suf-
ther) escaped the carnage India — that infuriated ground (Doon School and fered under ill-informed
of Partition by the skin of and united the political Cambridge) with prime and socially inferior bosses
his teeth. Subsequently, leadership of the Bharatiya minister Rajiv Gandhi, from whom he was always
the family lived in the out- Janata Party and bureau- dear. There is no doubt rescued in the nick of time
house of a relative in Delhi, cracy from the hinterland that his eve-of-election by connections in Delhi,
prompting Amma and her and turned public opinion quip that Narendra Modi have an air of boarding
three sons including re- against Lutyen’s Delhi. — the son of a backward school punishments such
nowned journalist Swami- Mani Shankar, who caste tea vendor at a rail- as occasional six-of-

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