When Nehru was 15 years old he went to England. He studied in Harrow and Cambridge and then London. He was called to the bar in 1912. His stay in England reinforced his elegant and cosmopolitan tastes. When in Cambridge he said “In my likes and dislikes I was perhaps more an Englishman than an Indian”
Nehru wrote a book titled Letter from a Father to His daughter. It is actually a collection of 30 letters. Through his letters he tries to introduce his daughter to the wonders of the world. Almost all the nooks penned by Nehru were done while he was in jail.
Have you heard of the Nehru jacket? Nehru started to wear this jacket when he stopped wearing western clothes. The jacket is distinctive because of its stand up collar. Today many politicians like to wear this.
Nehru’s ‘Discovery of India’ is considered a classic. It chronicles the growth of the nation from the days of the Indus valley Civilisation right up to the British Raj. He wrote this book when he was imprisoned after the Quit India Movement.
In 1917 several political issues caught his interest one of them being the imprisonment of Annie Besant. Subsequently he became active in the Home Rule League.
In 1920 Nehru met with the Indian kisan the peasant majority. He says he was “filled with shame and sorrow….. at the degradation and overwhelming poverty of India”. It was a turning point in his life and from this time on his concern were Indian.
Nehru passed away on May 27 1964.thousands waited hours to pay their last respects. He had made such a powerful imprint on India that there was nopolitical heir. It seemed apt to repeat the words that Nehru uttered at the time of Gandhiji’s assassination “The light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere