India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was a very emotional person, so emotional that he even kept the ashes of his father, mother and wife with him till his death. This was also revealed about six years after his death. These ashes were in three small containers made of aluminium and clay and these containers were kept in a cupboard kept in Anand Bhavan, his ancestral residence in Allahabad. Indira Gandhi's media advisor H.Y. Sharda Prasad came to know about them in 1970, when Indira asked him to go to her house and empty two cupboards of Jawaharlal Nehru.
What was found in Nehru's cupboard?
When Sharda Prasad gave an oral report to Indira Gandhi in this regard, Indira asked the staff taking care of Anand Bhavan to immerse the ashes of her grandfather (Motilal Nehru), grandmother (Swaroop Rani Nehru) and her mother (Kamala Nehru) in the Sangam. In his book 'The Book I Would Not Write and Other Essays' (Chronicle Books), Prasad quoted Indira Gandhi and wrote, 'It is not right to keep the ashes in this manner...' According to Prasad, Indira was less emotional than her father.
In the same cupboard in Allahabad, Prasad also found a bundle of four books wrapped in khadi. According to Prasad, 'These were typed copies of a book, which Jawaharlal Nehru had written while being imprisoned in Dehradun jail.' Prasad guessed that Nehru must have planned to write it as a sequel to his autobiography, but then he must have decided not to publish it. On the top copy, Nehru himself had written a word that revealed everything. The word was ‘REJECTED’. Sharada Prasad could not resist commenting, ‘He was a writer whose standards of self-evaluation were very high and who was hardly satisfied with his own writing. In such a situation, he must have come to the conclusion that this book was not worth publishing.’
The Iconic Anand Bhawan in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh - Paper Planes
Sharda Prasad, who was himself a reputed writer, was surprised by this. He wrote, 'When I looked at the title page, I wondered how many writers there would be who could decide not to publish their work, which they have spent months writing, while many of them do not even come close to Jawahar in terms of mind and style.'
The story of Ali Baba in Anand Bhavan
Sharda Prasad described his two-day search expedition in Allahabad as 'Ali Baba in Anand Bhavan', that is, a person who is looking for a 'treasure' like Ali Baba in Anand Bhavan. He also found a copy of Ramayana and a manuscript of a book written by Dr. Syed Mahmood on Hindu-Muslim unity in Nehru's cupboard. Some handwritten pages of Motilal Nehru were also found in a leather binding and 'Visit to Europe 1905' was written on its title page.
Telegrams and condolence messages received after the death of Kamala Nehru in the year 1936 were also kept in the cupboard. Nehru also preserved the letters and congratulatory notes he received at the wedding of Indira and Feroze Gandhi in March 1942. Nehru gave a small pamphlet on wedding rituals to each guest who attended the wedding ceremony. Sharada Prasad found a manuscript of this in Nehru's handwriting in a section of the cupboard.
The cupboard also contained the draft of the National Planning Committee, which later became the Planning Commission and is now known as the Niti Aayog. Nehru also preserved his Inner Temple certificate of being called to the Bar (a prestigious certificate whose recipient was then called a barrister) and his certificate of enrolment as a lawyer in the Allahabad High Court. The proceedings of the Azad Hind Fauj trial were also kept here. This was the same trial when Nehru wore the lawyer's uniform for the last time to defend Prem Kumar Sehgal, Shah Nawaz Khan and Gurbakhsh Singh Dhillon.
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