જનની – જનકને પ્રણામ
સ્વ. ધર્મપત્નીની યાદમાં ઈ-પુસ્તક
ફેસબુક પર વિનોદ પટેલ !
ઈ-વિદ્યાલય
ગુજરાતી ભાષાને નવલું નજરાણું
‘બની આઝાદ’ – ઈ બુક
વિનોદ વિહાર
ગુજરાતી ગદ્ય-પદ્ય સર્જનની આનંદ યાત્રા
( 220 ) બ્રિટનનાં ભૂતપૂર્વ મહિલા વડા પ્રધાન માર્ગારેટ થેચરનું દુખદ અવસાન – એક શ્રધાંજલિ
Posted by on એપ્રિલ 11, 2013
બ્રિટનના ઇતિહાસમાં એકમાત્ર ભૂતપૂર્વ મહિલા વડા પ્રધાન માર્ગારેટ થેચરનું
સોમવાર, ૮ એપ્રિળ ૨૦૧૩ના રોજ સ્ટ્રોકને કારણે લંડનમાં અવસાન થયું છે.
અવસાન વખતે એમની ઉંમર ૮૭ વર્ષની હતી.
તેઓ ૧૯૭૯થી ૧૯૯૦ સુધી, એમ ૧૧ વર્ષ સુધી વડા પ્રધાન પદે રહ્યાં હતાં .
ભારતનાં એક વખતનાં શક્તિશાળી મહિલા વડા પ્રધાન વિષે એમ કહેવાતું હતું કે આખા
પ્રધાન મંડળમાં ઇન્દિરા ગાંધી જ એક માત્ર પુરુષ છે !
માર્ગારેટ થેચરની ગણના પણ બ્રિટનની એક લોખંડી મહિલા વડા પ્રધાન તરીકે થતી
હતી.
એમના જીવન ઉપરથી એક અંગ્રેજી મુવી THE IRON LADY પણ ઉતરી ચૂક્યું છે .
નીચેની વિકી પીડીયાની લિંક અને બે વિડીયો ઉપરથી સ્વ. માર્ગારેટ થેચર વિષેનો
વિસ્તૃત પરિચય મેળવો .
Margaret Thatcher -વિકી પીડીયા
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MINI BIO DATA : MARGARET THATCHER -VIDEO
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Margaret Thatcher “The Iron Lady” Dead At 87
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એક મધ્યમ વર્ગીય ગ્રોસરી સ્ટોરના માલિકની દીકરી માર્ગારેટ થેચરનું જીવન અને
કાર્ય લાંબા સમય સુધી સૌને પ્રેરણા આપતું રહેશે .
સ્વ. માર્ગારેટ થેચરને વિનોદ વિહાર ની
હાર્દિક શ્રધાંજલિ
વિનોદ પટેલ
વિનોદ વિહાર 
તેમને શ્રધ્ધાંજલી માટે પોસ્ટ …N MEMORY OF MARGARET THATCHER
Thatcher And Chandraswami’s Predictions
NATWAR SINGH How a future Prime Minister of Britain warmed to the god man with an Indian diplomat playing the reluctant
translator .India House is among the better known diplomatic establishments in London. I first set eyes on the imposing building in 1952, when I was a student at Cambridge University. Thirty years later I entered India House as Deputy High Commissioner. One of my less attractive duties was to meet the unreasonable demands of visitors from India. Not all were disagreeable but many
were.Early in the summer of 1975, Mr. Chandraswamy telephones me. He was in London. The late Yashpal Kapoor had asked him to contact me,
Chandraswamy
invited me to meet me at his place. I said if he wished to see me, he should come to India House. This he did the next day. At the time he was in his late twenties. He was in his “Sadhu” attire. He did not speak a word of English. Now he does.At this, our first meeting, he dropped names. After a few days he again come to see
me. He invited my wife and me to have dinner with him.The
food was delicious. After dinner he said to us, “I will show you something you have never seen”. He then produced a large sheet of white paper and drew lines from top to bottom and left to right. Next he produced three strips of paper
asked my wife to write a question on each strip, make a ball and place each one on a square on the chess board. My wife wrote the questions in English. He closed his eyes and went into a trance. I was, by this time getting restless.
Suddenly he asked my wife to pick up any of the paper balls. She did so. Opened it. Chandraswamy then told her what the question was. He was spot on. My wife, who is an amateur astrologer, was sceptical at this stage. When Chandraswamy got the next two questions right, she was amazed and interested. I was intrigued. I could not, as a rationalist, accept mumbo-jumbo. Neither could I dismiss
Chandraswamy as a complete hoax.A few days later Y.B. Chavan, the then External Affairs Minister was on his way to the United States. I went to meet him at London’s Heathrow airport. He confirmed
he knew Chandraswamy well. I also told Chavan that Chandraswamy had asked me to arrange a meeting with Lord Mountbatten and also with Mrs Thatcher. Should I arrange these meetings? To my discomfiture and surprise, Chavan sahib saw no harm in Chandraswamy meeting
Lord Mountbatten or Mrs Thatcher.I rang up Lord Mountbatten. He said he would have been glad to meet “your friend”,
but he was leaving for a holiday in Northern Ireland the next day. I was quite relieved. I informed Chandraswamy. What about Mrs Thatcher? She had been elected leader of the Conservative Party six months earlier. Doubts still assailed me about Chandraswamy meeting Margaret Thatcher, not yet the iron lady. Suppose Chandraswamy made an ass of himself. I would look a bigger ass. I sought an appointment with the Leader of the Opposition. She promptly
obliged. I met her in her tiny office in the House of Commons.Her
response was, “If you think I should meet him, I shall. What does he
want to see me for?” “That he will tell you himself,” I said. She agreed to see him in her
House of Commons office early the next week. “Only ten minutes, Deputy High Commissioner,” she announced. I thanked her and left.
>Chandraswamy was on cloud nine when I gave him the news. I
cautioned him not to do or say something silly. I was putting my neck on the line for him. “Chinta
mut kareay, (don’t worry”)
said the sage. So, to the House of Commons the two of us proceeded.
Chandraswamy was dressed in his “sadhu”
kit, with a huge tilak on his forehead and a staff in his right hand.
Rudraksha malas round his neck. He banged the staff on the road till I told him to stop doing so. I confess, I was feeling self conscious. Not Chandraswamy. He relished the attention he was inviting. Finally we reached Mrs Thatcher’s office. With her was her Parliamentary Private Secretary, Adam Butler, M.P. son of Rab Butler,
the Conservative leader.
>Introductions over, Mrs Thatcher asked, “What did you want to see
me for?” Chandraswamy spoke in Hindi. I translated. “Tell her she will
soon find out.” His tone was arrogantly respectful. Mrs Thatcher — “I am waiting.” The clock was ticking away. Chandraswamy was in no hurry. He asked for a large piece of paper. Went through the same rouine as with my wife. He gave Mrs. Thatcher
five strips of paper and requested her to write a question on each.
She obliged,
but with scarcely camouflaged irritation. Chandraswamy asked her to open the
first paper ball. She did. He gave the text of the question in Hindi. I
translated. Correct. I watched Mrs Thatcher. The irritation gave way to
curiosity. Next question. Again bull’s eye. Curiosity replaced by interest. By
the fourth question the future iron lady’s demeanour changed. She began to look
at Chandraswamy not as a fraud, but as a holy man indeed. My body language too
altered. Last question. No problem. I heaved a sigh of relief. Mrs Thatcher was
now perched on the edge of the sofa. Like Oliver Twist, she asked for more.
Chandraswamy was like a triumphant Guru. He took off his chappals and
sat on the
sofa in the lotus pose. I was appalled. Mrs Thatcher seemed to approve. She
asked supplementary questions. In each case Chandraswamy’s response almost
overwhelmed the future Prime Minister. She was on the verge of another
supplementary, when Chandraswamy regally announced that the sun had
set. No more
questions. Mrs Thatcher was not put out. She enquired if she could meet him
again. I was entirely unprepared for this. Very coolly, almost condescendingly
he said, “On Tuesday at 2.30 p.m. at the house of Shri Natwar Singh.”
I told him
that he was over reaching himself by dictating the day and time without taking
into account her convenience. This was not India. He was unmoved “Kunwar
sahib, Anuvad kar dijiye aur phir dekhiye.” Please translate and then see. I
was astounded when she asked me, “Deputy High Commissioner, where do you live?”
This was not all. What followed was something out of a weird novel. Just as we
were about to leave, Mr. Holy Man produced a talisman tied to a not so tidy
piece of string. He then pronounced that Mrs Thatcher should tie it on her left
arm when she came to my house on Tuesday. I was now on the verge of losing my
temper. I said I would not translate thisdehati rubbish. Mrs Thatcher
intervened to
know what the holy man was saying. “Mrs Thatcher, please forgive me, but
Chandraswamy would like you to wear this talisman on your left arm.” She took
the talisman. We were saying our goodbyes, when Chandraswamy produced his
sartorial bomb. Turning to me he said “Kunwar
Sahib, kindly tell Mrs Thatcher that on Tuesday she should wear a red poshak.
I felt like hitting him. He was overdoing this. I firmly told him it was the
height of bad manners to tell a lady what she should or should not wear. Mrs
Thatcher looked a bit apprehensive at this not so mild altercation between a
distraught Deputy High Commissioner and a somewhat ill-mannered holy man. Very
reluctantly I said to her that the holy man would be obliged if she wore a red
dress on Tuesday. I was looking down at the floor as I said
this.
>On
Tuesday, at 2.30, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, leader of the Conservative Party,
arrived at Sun House, Frognal Way, Hampstead. It was a beautiful day. She was
wearing a stunning red dress. The talisman too was in its proper
place.She asked many questions but the most important
related to the chances of her becoming Prime Minister. My wife was
also present.
Chandraswamy did not disappoint Mrs Thatcher. He prophesied that she would be
Prime Minister for nine, eleven or thirteen years. Mrs Thatcher, no doubt
believed that she would be Prime Minister one day. Nine, eleven, thirteen years
was a bit much. Mrs Thatcher put one final question. When would she become a
Prime Minister? Chandraswamy announced — in three or four years. He was proved
right. She was PM for eleven years.This
narrative should have ended here. But there was an aftermath. The Commonwealth
Summit was held in Lusaka, Zambia in 1979. Mrs Margaret Thatcher had by then
become Prime Minister. I had been posted to Zambia in August 1977. Along with
other High Commissioners I went to Lusaka airport to receive Mrs Thatcher. When
she greeted me and my wife, I gently whispered “Our man proved right.” For a
moment she looked flustered. She took me aside, “High Commissioner, we don’t
talk about these matters.” “Of course not, prime minister, of course not,” said
I.(Extracted from K. Natwar Singh’s new book “Walking with Lions — Tales from a Diplomatic Past,”Harper Collins)
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Thank you Pragnaben for posting the story from K. Natwar Singh’s new book “Walking with
Lions — Tales from a Diplomatic Past,”Harper Collins) about meeting of Chandra Swami and
Late Margaret Thechar .
It is very relevant and befitting to this post .
I know that Chandra Swami had great influence on Indira Gandhi and other Indian
Politicians .
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A memorable woman persinality..Salute to her braveness.
Ramesh Patel(Aakashdeep)
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