INDIRAJI THROUGH MY EYES By Usha Bhagat Penguin Viking Price: Rs 595 Pages: 292

Leaders can often be judged by the people they surround themselves with. More so for someone like Indira Gandhi who remains an enigma to a majority of her countrypersons. Mrs Gandhi took on a large number of women on her staff while using others as sounding boards. Widowed early in her political career, she could be herself, an intelligent, well-educated woman with eclectic tastes, only in the company of women with similar backgrounds and interests. There was Elizabeth Gauba, who ran the school in Delhi where sons Sanjay and Rajiv were first educated. She was a close friend till they fell out after Gauba, a high-strung woman, slapped Mrs Gandhi at her house during an argument. Pupul Jayakar, her cultural czarina; Teji Bachchan, whose sons were playmates of Sanjay and Rajiv; Katherine Frank, her biographer. There was also Usha Bhagat, a schoolteacher hired to assist Mrs Gandhi in personal matters, update her on developments in the arts, arrange meetings with artists and writers, and organise official banquets.

From 1953 onwards, Bhagat spent 31 years with Mrs Gandhi. As she writes, "We had a strange relationship, sometimes full of understanding and sometimes not being able to comprehend each other." Bhagat's book is a valuable addition to the many on Mrs Gandhi, revealing a side to her that not many have written about or witnessed. Bhagat had access to notes, memos and personal letters that are the most edifying aspect of Mrs Gandhi's personality and insecurities. Bhagat also offers valuable insights into the complex relationship between Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira. At Teen Murti House, she once stumbled upon the prime minister being loudly scolded by his daughter over some minor household transgression. As Bhagat observes: "The father and daughter were deeply attached to each other but she could not communicate with him easily." Or with her husband Feroze. Of the many letters reproduced here, there is none as poignant and enlightening as the one Mrs Gandhi wrote to her friend Dorothy Norman: "I am sorry to have missed the most wonderful thing in life, having a complete and perfect relationship with another human being ... for only thus, I feel, can one's personality fully develop."

PICTURE SPEAK

BRIDGING DISTANCES: Bhagat (left) with Indira Gandhi

Apart from intimate details about Mrs Gandhi and her ascension from papa's helper to Congress general secretary to prime minister, Bhagat also reveals her impressions of the prime minister's household and Mrs G's relationship with Feroze, Sanjay, Rajiv, Sonia, Maneka and her grandchildren, Rahul and Priyanka.

Bhagat's own perception is added value. "She was a loner, she shut herself in but didn't shut others out ... she could lead some people to form an impression that she was quite close to them, but this was not necessarily so." Perhaps the most accurate summing up comes from author Mary Carras whom Bhagat quotes: "She had a singular ability to evoke both hate and love, to alienate and to charm, to frustrate and simultaneously to delight." The highlights of the book are the handwritten notes and memos and Bhagat's impressions of the Gandhi household. The author admits this is not a political assessment, yet she writes with understandable affection and enough objectivity to bring India's most enigmatic leader to life once again.