Reflections

I know Jawaharlal Nehru is coming out of our eyes and ears, but let the small acts of
small men not detract us from the great deeds of the great man that Jawaharlal Nehru
indeed was.
I was still in school when I first heard him speak on the grounds of Allahabad
University. Soon after he began to speak, it started to drizzle and one of his attendants
came forward with an umbrella. Nehru waved him away with a royal movement of his
hand. After the speech, when he got into his car, it was surrounded by delirious
students shouting 'Jawaharlal Nehru zindabad, Jawaharlal Nehru zindabad' and it
couldn't move out. A few minutes later, a red-faced Nehru jumped out of the car like
an angry tiger and shouted, 'What nonsense is this'. There was pin drop silence all
around. Students instinctively made way for his car. It moved out amidst renewed
chants of 'Nehru zindabad, Nehru zindabad!' Such was his hold on the masses.
It was years later that I had the opportunity of hearing him again, when he came to
address one of the convocations at I.I.T.Kharagpur. By then, India had become used to
his being the Prime Minister and I guess Nehru had become used to being the Prime
Minister of India. The roads were repaired, lamp posts were painted, buildings were
white-washed and new gardens were created instantly. Nehru came and gave a
meandering speech (those were not the days of speech writers and readers) about
science and industrialization; how the future of the country rests on our (then) young
shoulders. After the convocation speech, he briskly walked from one laboratory to
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