Giving a ‘voice’ to diplomatic spouses, whose contribution to the nation has been left unsung, Jayshree Mishra Tripathi, a diplomat spouse and poet, has curated a wonderful offering from the wives and daughters of diplomats, as well as two IAS husbands. It covers the period from the fifties to the first decade of this century, when phone calls were erratic and far too expensive, and long, handwritten letters were the only reliable way to communicate.
The first chapter, Beyond the Call of Matrimony, by Reshmi Ray Dasgupta, is a narrative on the life and times of her mother, Gayatri Ray. On the Rays’ first posting in Karachi, she bonded well with Begum Hamida, the wife of Premier Mohammad Ali Bogra, who had to face flak from the conservative sections for her sartorial preference of the Bengali saree over the ‘salwar kameez.’ The first thing she did when the 65 war broke out was to burn the ‘cypher’ code, for which she was promised a Padma Shri by Shastri, but he died soon thereafter, and this act of valour was lost in the bureaucratic labyrinth.
Hema Devare recounts life in the sleepy little town of Gangtok and the whirlwind romance of the Chogyal with the American heiress Hope Cooke, who became the new Gyalmo. The Gyalmo came to their residence to mark Halloween and insisted on a dance with the First Secretary, who was in his dressing gown. The Devares had gone to Sikkim when it was a protectorate. By the time they left, it was a state of the Indian Union.
Kusum Bhadwar writes about Ethiopia—the ancient land, once known as Abyssinia, where the descendants of the Biblical King Solomon and Queen Sheba had an uninterrupted run of three millennia—from 950 BCE to 1974. The tagline of the country was Thirteen Months of Sunshine—and it was so, both literally and metaphorically. The country still follows the old Julian calendar, which is eight years behind the Gregorian calendar. Also, time is measured in two twelve-hour cycles, instead of the 24-hour clock!
Kusum Tayal soon overcame her initial apprehensions about South Africa, especially as they were expecting a posting in the USA. While Johannesburg was a difficult city to live in, Cape Town was picturesque, for it had everything bright and beautiful that nature could possibly offer. However, what has remained etched in her memory is the experience of attending the meetings of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Mandela and Bishop Tutu had set up the TRC to heal the wounds of injustice by having the aggressors narrate and repent their actions in the presence of the victims.
Continuing the narrative from Africa is Margreta Kumar’s tryst with Mugabe’s Zimbabwe—a copybook example of what happens to a nation when the institutional roots of democracy and civil society are not strong. However, making the best of a difficult situation, the family bonded well, and the son learned horse riding and developed a sense of outdoor adventure.
Anuradha Muthukumar tried setting up home in ‘Dushanbe,’ inhabited by people of Iranian descent who, over the centuries, had intermingled with Arabs, Turks, Mongols, and Russians. Its etymological origins can be traced to the Persian ‘Du,’ meaning two, and ‘Shanbe’ for Saturday. This was a place on the Silk Route, where the markets were held on Mondays, two days after Saturday! Given the escalating civil war, she had to leave Tajikistan within eighteen days.
Unlike the Baghdad in the fables of Sindbad, the Iraqi experience of Sridevi Nair Pal was marked by one word, ‘maaku’: not available. What a struggle it must have been is best conveyed in this one sentence: ‘Sanitary napkins, vegetables, onions, garlic, and ginger all had been ‘maaku-ed’ out of the market, and green chillies were beyond the reach of even those on a diplomatic assignment!
Imagine the transformation of Asiya Hamid Rao’s life when she accompanied her diplomat husband from Aligarh to Vienna—cities of absolute contrast in everything, from cuisine to music to sartorial preferences! Under the tutelage of wives of senior colleagues, she learned the survival ‘party tips’: maintaining the balance between veg and non-veg, as well as between gravy and dry items. Preeti Singh recalls one of the high-end parties in Geneva, where a woman in a designer Prada outfit lost her ‘cool’ when she saw another one wearing the same dress. And just as the Singhs were leaving, another one walked in with the same ensemble!
After a happy ‘arranged marriage’ to Ashok, Sharmila transitioned from being a carefree college student to the second secretary’s wife in Beijing. She describes the life of a diplomatic spouse: ‘I have accompanied first ladies during their state visits to India, sat through amateurish, but enthusiastic community functions, stood for hours in heels to greet a thousand guests on our National Day receptions, and helped my son navigate different school systems…’
In Yin and Yang: The Korean Peninsula, Anita Sapra makes a pithy comment about frequent dislocations—for shifting home is the third most stressful situation, just after death and divorce, and diplomatic spouses face it every three years! The Sapras held their postings in both Seoul and Pyongyang. While the contrast between the two Koreas has been documented in detail, what stood out is the fascination of both with Hindi films. In Seoul, she hummed Haathi Mere Saathi, and on the other side, it was Mera Joota Hai Japani!
Brazil, says Shrimi Sinha, is a ‘country like no other.’ The capital, Brasilia, was planned like an aircraft by Oscar Niemeyer, a pupil of Le Corbusier, of Chandigarh fame. But this was a country where women were obsessed with their beauty and their bodies, with liposuction on the tummy being quite a ‘normal’ procedure. But there were fault lines: she was shocked when her son (in the tenth grade) asked her to select a present for his classmate’s baby!
The Shankars—Ajay and Meera—met and fell in love rehearsing plays in the picturesque Charleville campus of LBSNAA. As Meera was in the foreign office, Ajay had the privilege of being her diplomatic partner on her various missions abroad, especially the USA, when he joined her full-time after his retirement. The real American was a far cry from the image of the ‘Marlboro Man’: smoking was no longer in vogue, and hard drinking was out. He also got an opportunity to be a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre.
In the ‘spouse route,’ Ashok Pandey shares his time with Reena Poovaiah in Kathmandu, London, Istanbul, Ankara, Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, and the Georgian city of Tbilisi. In fact, both Armenia and Georgia have become havens for Indian medical students.
Diplomat Smita Purushottam writes on behalf of her mother, Susheela, whose contribution to SVP was being the ‘right-hand man’ to every Indian ambassador to the (erstwhile) Soviet Union. Those were the times when diplomatic spouses were not allowed to work, and Susheela, the first woman from Bihar to have earned an MSc in physics, had to sacrifice her career at the altar of her husband’s career.
And finally, the last entry, ‘Marionettes in Disguise,’ is from the editor herself. Jayshree Misra Tripathi, a VoW author, accompanied Sibabrata in his postings to South Korea, Finland, Panama, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, Uganda, and Kenya. Were the ‘spouses’ (women) who followed their husbands without question to new posts and missions—even risking their lives (and those of their unborn children)—‘baggage’ or an ‘intangible asset’? Read this wonderful book to make an informed judgment.
