My Days with Nehru

M.O. Mathai, Nehru's Special Assistant and alter ego between 1946 and 1959, was reputed to be the most powerful man after the Prime Minister during the years that he served Nehru. Mathai was the only one to know everything about Nehru, most especially the first Prime Minister's private thoughts about Politics, Congress leaders, Bureaucrats, Money, Alchohol along with much else that attracted his attention off and on. The author reveals all with much candor and sincerity, and says "Before I started writing this book, I suspended from my mind all personal loyalties of a conventional nature; only my obligation to history remained." Mathai writes about Nehru's style, Krishna Menon's personal habits, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit's extravagance, Feroze Gandhi's ambitions and Mountbatten's weakness for titles and honors. This work is a major contribution to modern Indian history as it gives and insider's view of how the powerful often tried to manipulate Nehru for purposes that were not always conductive to nation-building