INDIA TRIVA


I'm in the middle of watching a three-hour PBS documentary about the Nehru-Gandhi* dynasty in India. It's quite good; they interviewed EVERYONE.

Anyway, at one point a daughter of Lord Montbatten (the British viceroy under whom India became independent) talks about the time her family and Jawaharlal Nehru's were staying in a palace (?) in Simla, just before independence. Apparently she was given a message to bring to Nehru, who went on to become India's first prime minster (but is probably better known among today's young hipsters for popularizing the Nehru jacket). Anyway he said, impatiently, "Come in! Come in!" She opened the door and was flabbergasted to find that he was in headstand. "We proceeded to have an rather long conversation with him in a headstand the entire time." She had a very posh accent. They all did (Gandhi, Nehru and Jinna were all lawyers).





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*Indira Nehru married a man named Gandhi and that's how she got the name. He was no relation to the white-clad thread-spinning father of nonviolent resistance