First of all salute to a woman cum mother journalist who kept alive the true journalism even in her difficult times and in era of buttering to equip higher positions in society though she was already equipped with all such surroundings. Another thing she is a true social and political journalist who keeps her professional life always separate from her personal life. Words are less to describe her journalistic sense and special thank you 'Tavleen Singh' for 'DURBAR' that only let one know about some hidden, some unknown facts but also make a true journalist to analyse oneself and perform duties towards nation society and organization.
First two points which I think Tavleen has well described as they suit in present scenario also:
1. Who say woman journalists are weak.
Incident : When Tavleen was able to convince General K.S.' Bulbul' Brar's (Incharge of Operation Blue Star) son to move tank aside so that she can move forward to Amritsar, then her cameraman Sandeep proudly said " Which fool was it who said woman face disadvantages in journalism? If I had been alone I would have been arrested for sure.". These words are enough to believe in women's journalism and their dedication to file their own story.
2. Public Broadcaster's Role :
Public broadcasters of India have been from the beginning remained puppets of Central Government. All India Radio was once known as 'All Indira Radio' while Doordarshan used to carry Government good things and broadcast a superhit film on the same hours when any opposition rally is to be held. During Rajiv Gandhi's reign Doordarshan's attempts to produce better entertainment programs and news were as amateur and ineffectual as that Tavleen on her travel to Punjab was seeing people watching Pakistan TV because of high quality content. One thing which is infact true in present time also, which Tavleen said while writing 'Durbar' is as long as Public Broadcasters are being controlled by sitting Babus it is unlikely to improve their content and quality as officials rarely come equipped with creativity and imagination needed to transform a shoddy propaganda machine into real TV or Radio.
Now about some interesting unknown facts and incidents :
1. Rajmata of Jaipur, Maharani Gayatri Devi contested a LokSabha election in early 60s and won with such an astonishing margin that she found herself in Guinness Book of Records.
2. Emergency which came into effect at midnight on 25th June 1975 press censorship was done and most newspapers failed to get published that morning as power supply was cut in Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, but with typical Indian ineptitude, officials had forgotten the Statesman and the Hindustan Times had offices in Connaught Place, who later on bravely published an special edition that morning with blank front page.
3.Though Sanjay Gandhi was Indira Gandhi's favourite but Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi had never praised him for his works or victories instead they usually blamed him when something went wrong and there were defeats.
4. One point which shows how differently and badly Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi treat Maneka Gandhi.
Incident: Maneka Gandhi saw some imported dog biscuits in fridge and fed them to her dogs. Suddenly Sonia screamed on her and along with her Rajiv also started screaming at that lonely lady merely just because imported dog biscuits ha been feeded to wrong one. Just a sign of immaturity and childish manner.
5. Sanjay Gandhi banned bollywood film 'Kissa Kursi Ka' as it annoyed him because it contained dispaging references to an unnamed politician who was given licence to produce India's first small car.
6. Sanjay Gandhi used services of a skilled 'holy man' called Chandraswami to bring down Janata Government by persuading him to use his fortune telling skills on Charan Singh that he had possibility of becoming Indian Prime Minister. Though it happened but only for a brief period of time.
7. About earlier Kumbh Mela's :It was usual practice that girl child aged 3,4,5,6 etc get lost easily or can be said often because their parents wanted to get rid of them and interesting fact that Tavleen Singh found in 1977 Allahabad Kumb Mela was that there were uncountable girl children who lost their parents but not a single boy was missing there.and to this her say was "India's children are the worst victims of bad governance" which still proves to be true.
8. In 1977 Syed Ahmed Shah Bukhari hold hands with RSS leaders to defeat Indira Gandhi.
9. During 1980 elections, when Rajmata of Gwalior was contesting against Indira Gandhi from Raibareli Tavleen came across an interesting fact:
She asked 'Can Rajmata win?'
An older beared muslim replied 'Never, never. Nobody associated with the Jan Sangh can win here. This is a constituency in which more than 35% votes are Muslims'. In short Muslims were always against Jan Sangh irrespective of person and development.
10. In June 1980 when Sanjay Gandhi's aircraft crashed, reporter who went on the crash site described briefly how Indira Gandhi arrived shortly afterwards and searched her son's pocket for something and then driven away. To believe political gossips she might be looking for keys of swiss bank lockers.
11. Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi had no interest in politics and other matters ongoing in India until Sanjay Gandhi passed away.
12. Though Sonia Gandhi was foreigner her English was not well, but she was respectfully accepted in Rajiv Gandhi's highly classed friend circle, which an Indian woman would not have been.
13. After some weeks of Indira Gandhi's death Rajiv Gandhi justified Hindu-Sikh violence by saying 'When a big tree falls, the earth shakes'.
14. After Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister 'Quattrocchis' become favourites to RCR, the new house for PM. One of the incident says, when PMs security guard tried to use a metal detector on Mrs Quattrocchi, to check, she had kicked him and thrown a tantrum.
Bullshit no citizen could tolerate this.
15. Due to his failure to handle bofors scandal and touchability with rural India Rajiv Gandhi was mocked same as Rahul Gandhi in present for not understanding India and there were jokes, satirical skits and conversations.
16. Rajiv Gandhi banned Salman Rushdie's 'The Satanic Verses' as he believed it to be anti-Islam. Interestingly this point was first noted by than Government of India and not Ayotollah Khomeini.
Another interesting point was, one of the character in book was 'Tavleen' a sikh woman and human bomb. To this Rajiv hinted to his friend Tavleen Singh that she and Raghu Rai had something to do with hijacking of Indian Airlines flight from Srinagar in July 1984. At that time writer was only 'Tavleen' in India and to save her father gave her gender neutral Sikh names like Tavinder and Tejinder.
In London when Tavleen met Salman Rushdie she appealed him to change the 'Tavleen' name in his book. To this he apologised by saying that the first copies of book were already in print and compensated her by giving a proof of copy of 'The Satanic Verses' signed 'For Tavleen, with apologies for the misuse of her name'.
17. 21st May 1991- The day when Rajiv Gandhi went to Sriperumbudur (Tamil Nadu), a town nobody heard of and not even Congress campaign managers know the reason for his visit to there. he became a prey of human bomb.
Investigation always get stuck and puzzled at a point that how Maragathan Chandrasekhar, the candidate in support of whom rally was being held and every other senior Congress leader at the rally survived and among 14 who died there was no Congress leader. A Tamil journalist tried to conduct his own investigation, was warned to stop it. He revealed to Tavleen that Dhanu (human bomb who blew Rajiv Gandhi) was in friendly terms with Mrs. Chandrasekhar's daughter Latha Priyakumar and was allowed into Rajiv's innermost security perimeter.
18. Very rare Indians or even I think RSS workers may be knowing that RSS publishes English newspaper 'MotherLand'.
19. Journalist M.J.Akbar who recently joined BJP became a huge fan of Rajiv Gandhi forever just by taking a single interview, arranged by Tavleen Singh.
20. Operation Blue Thunder was 2nd battle to free The Golden Temple from several small groups of militants.
21. Bunga (in Punjabi) are a narrow red brick tower once used for military purposes, as lookouts and for steering weapons.
22. Haag is a special spinach that grows only on the edges of the Dal Lake.
Now about some interesting unknown facts and incidents :
1. Rajmata of Jaipur, Maharani Gayatri Devi contested a LokSabha election in early 60s and won with such an astonishing margin that she found herself in Guinness Book of Records.
2. Emergency which came into effect at midnight on 25th June 1975 press censorship was done and most newspapers failed to get published that morning as power supply was cut in Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, but with typical Indian ineptitude, officials had forgotten the Statesman and the Hindustan Times had offices in Connaught Place, who later on bravely published an special edition that morning with blank front page.
3.Though Sanjay Gandhi was Indira Gandhi's favourite but Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi had never praised him for his works or victories instead they usually blamed him when something went wrong and there were defeats.
4. One point which shows how differently and badly Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi treat Maneka Gandhi.
Incident: Maneka Gandhi saw some imported dog biscuits in fridge and fed them to her dogs. Suddenly Sonia screamed on her and along with her Rajiv also started screaming at that lonely lady merely just because imported dog biscuits ha been feeded to wrong one. Just a sign of immaturity and childish manner.
5. Sanjay Gandhi banned bollywood film 'Kissa Kursi Ka' as it annoyed him because it contained dispaging references to an unnamed politician who was given licence to produce India's first small car.
6. Sanjay Gandhi used services of a skilled 'holy man' called Chandraswami to bring down Janata Government by persuading him to use his fortune telling skills on Charan Singh that he had possibility of becoming Indian Prime Minister. Though it happened but only for a brief period of time.
7. About earlier Kumbh Mela's :It was usual practice that girl child aged 3,4,5,6 etc get lost easily or can be said often because their parents wanted to get rid of them and interesting fact that Tavleen Singh found in 1977 Allahabad Kumb Mela was that there were uncountable girl children who lost their parents but not a single boy was missing there.and to this her say was "India's children are the worst victims of bad governance" which still proves to be true.
8. In 1977 Syed Ahmed Shah Bukhari hold hands with RSS leaders to defeat Indira Gandhi.
9. During 1980 elections, when Rajmata of Gwalior was contesting against Indira Gandhi from Raibareli Tavleen came across an interesting fact:
She asked 'Can Rajmata win?'
An older beared muslim replied 'Never, never. Nobody associated with the Jan Sangh can win here. This is a constituency in which more than 35% votes are Muslims'. In short Muslims were always against Jan Sangh irrespective of person and development.
10. In June 1980 when Sanjay Gandhi's aircraft crashed, reporter who went on the crash site described briefly how Indira Gandhi arrived shortly afterwards and searched her son's pocket for something and then driven away. To believe political gossips she might be looking for keys of swiss bank lockers.
11. Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi had no interest in politics and other matters ongoing in India until Sanjay Gandhi passed away.
12. Though Sonia Gandhi was foreigner her English was not well, but she was respectfully accepted in Rajiv Gandhi's highly classed friend circle, which an Indian woman would not have been.
13. After some weeks of Indira Gandhi's death Rajiv Gandhi justified Hindu-Sikh violence by saying 'When a big tree falls, the earth shakes'.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee refuted this by saying he is a child and didn't understood that 'When earth shakes tree falls'.
To say scientifically Mr. Vajpayee was right.14. After Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister 'Quattrocchis' become favourites to RCR, the new house for PM. One of the incident says, when PMs security guard tried to use a metal detector on Mrs Quattrocchi, to check, she had kicked him and thrown a tantrum.
Bullshit no citizen could tolerate this.
15. Due to his failure to handle bofors scandal and touchability with rural India Rajiv Gandhi was mocked same as Rahul Gandhi in present for not understanding India and there were jokes, satirical skits and conversations.
16. Rajiv Gandhi banned Salman Rushdie's 'The Satanic Verses' as he believed it to be anti-Islam. Interestingly this point was first noted by than Government of India and not Ayotollah Khomeini.
Another interesting point was, one of the character in book was 'Tavleen' a sikh woman and human bomb. To this Rajiv hinted to his friend Tavleen Singh that she and Raghu Rai had something to do with hijacking of Indian Airlines flight from Srinagar in July 1984. At that time writer was only 'Tavleen' in India and to save her father gave her gender neutral Sikh names like Tavinder and Tejinder.
In London when Tavleen met Salman Rushdie she appealed him to change the 'Tavleen' name in his book. To this he apologised by saying that the first copies of book were already in print and compensated her by giving a proof of copy of 'The Satanic Verses' signed 'For Tavleen, with apologies for the misuse of her name'.
17. 21st May 1991- The day when Rajiv Gandhi went to Sriperumbudur (Tamil Nadu), a town nobody heard of and not even Congress campaign managers know the reason for his visit to there. he became a prey of human bomb.
Investigation always get stuck and puzzled at a point that how Maragathan Chandrasekhar, the candidate in support of whom rally was being held and every other senior Congress leader at the rally survived and among 14 who died there was no Congress leader. A Tamil journalist tried to conduct his own investigation, was warned to stop it. He revealed to Tavleen that Dhanu (human bomb who blew Rajiv Gandhi) was in friendly terms with Mrs. Chandrasekhar's daughter Latha Priyakumar and was allowed into Rajiv's innermost security perimeter.
18. Very rare Indians or even I think RSS workers may be knowing that RSS publishes English newspaper 'MotherLand'.
19. Journalist M.J.Akbar who recently joined BJP became a huge fan of Rajiv Gandhi forever just by taking a single interview, arranged by Tavleen Singh.
20. Operation Blue Thunder was 2nd battle to free The Golden Temple from several small groups of militants.
21. Bunga (in Punjabi) are a narrow red brick tower once used for military purposes, as lookouts and for steering weapons.
22. Haag is a special spinach that grows only on the edges of the Dal Lake.
