Meeting Gloria Steinem, in the afterglow of freedom

The author met Gloria Steinem in 1956 while she was living in a rented apartment in Delhi's Golf Links.

Incredible as it might appear, I met Gloria Steinem in 1956 at the home of one of the three young men who had built post-independence institutions such as the Cottage Industries Emporium – Lakshmi Jain, Som Benegal and DD Joshi. They were three bachelors aged around 30 or less, living in a lovely apartment in Golf Links in Delhi. The rent-free apartment was an offer by another one of those who had jumped aboard the wave of post-independence service to enable the refugees of Partition to be rehabilitated – Dr Shanthi Ghosh.

Gloria Steinem was an American journalist, activist and author who recently passed away. (AP)

The post-independence atmosphere in Delhi was like a celebration, as so many people had jumped in to build so many of the institutions that we see and favour today. Visitors to India were eager to know more about this great revival, and thus to meet any of those engaged in this reconstruction. One such area was the revival of handlooms and handicrafts, and my “boy friend” at that time, Lakshmi Jain, was a star sought out by these foreigners.

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So a mutual friend had brought Gloria to LC Jain’s habitat in 1956; Gloria and I met and it was like magic. We decided to “hang out” together and wandered in Delhi, especially Old Delhi, talking and playing Holi when that happened and so on. While this aspect of her opinion is not well known, Gandhi and his ideas deeply impressed her. So when I visited New York in 1958 , we went to the Gandhi statue together and laid flowers.

Seven decades have passed since that time and her apartment has been my home in New York for all these decades. Her work, her writings, her lifestyle are all so consistent: a sincere, deep regard for “difference,” for humility – all wrapped in an amazingly rich intellect. We might grieve her passing, but to my mind, she has laid the foundation for the public acknowledgement of women’s mind, skills, political and social voices.