Genteel chacha

Dearest Chacha sharing a smoke

Grandson fulfilling dream of Grandfather in true Bharatiya tradition

Great Leader Nehru

I have read with interest “Witness to history” by R. C. Rajamani (Spectrum, March 19). The writer has mentioned that not many know that Nehru was a chain smoker. This is not true. Nehru used to smoke two or three cigarettes a day and that too using a filter. I happened to see him smoking a cigarette in this manner while he was sitting in the Assembly Hall of the Constitution Club, Curzon Road, now Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi, in July 1947. He was attending a meeting of the AICC.

His photographs smoking a cigarette with a filter are available in pictorial biographies. However, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was a chain smoker.

RAGHU BANS SINGH BHATTAL, Ludhiana

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060409/mailbag.htm