Memoir, biography, social history and tribute, Zareer Masani’s book is a good read at many levels

MEMOIRS AND BIOGRAPHIES only touch a chord when they are unflinchingly honest in tone and full of revelations of people and the times they live in. Judged in this light, Zareer Masani’s And All is Said and Done ticks all the boxes. His background as a historian, coupled with his ability to turn an unclouded gaze upon himself and his parents, and his skill as an author, make for an engrossing piece of non-fiction. Drawing on the letters and diaries of his parents, politician Minoo Masani and wife Shakuntala, Masani gives us an intimate look at two different, but charismatic, people—his parents. Though both came from prominent families, there were more differences than similarities—the Masanis were Parsis from Bombay, while Shakuntala’s parents, the Srivastavas, were Kayasths from UP. The twice-divorced Minoo Masani was a Left-wing Congress activist, who eloped with a much younger Shakuntala. (Later, he became a founder of the pro-free-market Swatantra Party, Leader of the Opposition in Parliament and a campaigner against global communism). Shakuntala was brought up wanting for nothing, in a family that essentially thrived under the British Raj. With such high-profile and spirited protagonists, the book is as much a social history and political commentary, as it is a personal memoir. Political heavyweights loom large in the conversations and correspondence between the family and there is an account of Nehru at the breakfast table with Minoo Masani. Inevitably, the political also becomes personal— as Zareer and his mother join Indira Gandhi in the face of his father’s rigid opposition. It is the final straw that breaks the family apart. “Their political differences marked the end of my parents’ marriage; and I paid the price for encouraging the break when I had to cope with my mother’s loneliness and general decline in the decades that followed. Our disillusionment with Mrs Gandhi, especially when she imposed her state of Emergency, made the whole domestic rift seem even more futile,” Zareer writes. In the course of this journey, we get a real taste of post-colonial India and a family that had a prominent role to play at the time. The correspondence between Shakuntala and Masani gives fascinating insights into the entire Indira era. One example is the fact that the author and his mother used code language in their letters—calling Gandhi ‘Bhai’ and Jayaprakash Narayan ‘Russet’, the name of Zareer’s childhood pet, revealing the degree of censorship that existed during that period. There are anecdotes of Shakuntala introducing a young Zareer to her circle of friends in London, from author Arthur Koestler to publisher Hamish Hamilton. Purdah parties in Nainital, musical evenings in Mumbai and intrigues in Indira Gandhi’s Emergency-stricken Delhi; all form the backdrop for the troubles in the writer’s family. Ultimately, this book is a poignant portrayal of the author’s life. The reader is aware of his role as a troubled son going through bitter separations and a prolonged divorce. Their human frailties—and indeed, his own—are laid bare. You see the outcome of the inevitable choosing of sides when parents become combatants. You participate in Zareer’s struggle to accept his sexuality and then live with it in the India of the 1960s. You struggle right along with him as he attempts to find a balance between the rival influences of his parents. Perhaps most of all, you see the love with which a son portrays his mother, right up to the time he holds her ashes and grapples with the ultimate truth of mortality. “Would you capture heaven and earth with a single name? I say to you then, Shakuntala, and all is said.” These are words from the German poet Goethe, which were inspired by Kalidasa’s masterpiece Abhijnanashakuntala. They certainly provide a fitting title to Masani’s book, which has a strong flavour of being a tribute to his mother even when he is describing her faults. When all is said and done, this is one of the better books to have come out this year—whether you are interested in history, politics or simply, good writing.