This memoir covers far more ground and offers more narratives than the sub-title suggests, being written by Reba Som, an author, scholar, musician with Tagore and Nazrul expertise, script-writer and administrator. Indian embassies abroad, where she was located for the years of her husband’s career, form merely the backdrop to a far more varied presentation of her travels, interests and attributes. Of 15 chapters, the two longest are those of her husband’s last assignments at home and abroad, when Reba was able significantly to hone many of her own talents.

There have been many recent memoirs of Indian diplomats, but far fewer of the partners that accompanied them. Reba’s husband Himachal was posted in eight countries, twice as ambassador. She describes being ‘buffeted from posting to posting’ with the many unenviable (and unrecognised) tasks that fall to the partner without the glamour of office or benefit of remuneration. She describes her personality as ‘methodical, reserved and focused’, great qualities for her many challenges, but omits the sensitivity, romanticism and even mysticism that clearly form a part of her persona. Nevertheless, she writes, ‘there was a sense of pride in being called out to the world stage to represent your country, your culture.’

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Reba had a son in Denmark and a second one in the USA, and discovered ‘that the best insight into people and cultures can be gleaned by having babies in different countries.’ The first experience was decidedly inferior to the second – though in New York the awaiting mother was first presented with the wrong baby. It is a matter of shame that the unnamed (lady) ambassador at Copenhagen asked the author to stand in a ‘dance pose’ wearing a red banarsi sari and gold kamarbandh before a map of India while the ambassador made a speech. Equally, the next ambassador and wife asked to be addressed as ‘Baba’ and ‘Ma’.

In the mid-970s during a home posting Reba started research on stalwarts of the Indian National Congress –Patel, Prasad, Rajagopalachari – that led to the award of a PhD three postings later.  She was also a newsreader for AIR, taught at Delhi University and expanded her musical repertoire beyond Rabindrasangeet. In Islamabad, her husband’s third foreign assignment, Reba encountered mob violence against the Americans, which led to ‘a sense of panic in the diplomatic corps… as stories of trauma, manhandling and loss poured in.’ In New York, the next assignment, she had time to work on projects and profiles at the UN Center for Transnational Corporations. During this period, the Soms were warned of threats from Kashmiri and Khalistani militants which led to her husband leaving before her while she finished her UN project.

Bangladesh (1984-8) was Reba’s husband’s next assignment, where both had ancestral ties which they revived with considerable nostalgia. Here, Reba was talented enough to train under the Nazrul ‘legendary exponent’ Firoza Begum, and her research that began in Delhi culminated in a doctor’s degree. She also taught in the Indian school, was consultant to an international health agency, and experienced first-hand the tortured and often illogical love-hate sentiments of Bangladeshis towards both Pakistan and India.

After a second home posting, Reba moved to Ottawa — the second coldest capital in the world– where once again the Khalistani threat created forebodings. After this, Himachal was ambassador to Laos, ‘a communist country [since 1975] with a Buddhist soul’, where caterpillars to scorpions were delicacies to the local people and earth spirit worship, though banned, was the dominant non-Buddhist belief. Fittingly it was here that the reader learns the first of three mystical experiences that the author experienced; emanations of her father’s death, later her mother’s, and much later, Himachal’s post-mortem messages both direct and indirect.

Himachal shone brightest in his next assignment as director general ICCR in Delhi when he organised an Indian writers’ international gathering, the forerunner of the book festivals that now proliferate in India. Reba worked at UN Women (UNIFEM) which prompts her to expatiate on women married to foreign service officers; ‘So many issues on which wives broke their heads – temperamental differences to be addressed within marriages often ‘arranged’ among strangers, maladjustment of children in new schools, in ever-changing social settings; the burden of identifying and scouting around for provisions needed to host endless parties; the eternal problem of being left with unsatisfactory household help at home since many of the India-based staff would be homesick, ill or want to leave, and the constant pressure of hosting friends and family’. When Indian diplomats were addressed in glowing terms by their minister, the wives ‘swathed in our Kanjeevaram best, stood around like ornamental figures, ignored and redundant.’ Yet, Reba found herself much sought after for her translations of Tagore’s songs, and performed with dancers Uma Sharma and Sonal Mansingh when her ‘full-throated singing and crystal clear diction’ were widely acclaimed.

‘Rome for me was the ultimate dream’ Reba writes about her husband’s last posting, and it proved a highly important period for her.  She lectured on Gandhi, Nehru and Bose, performed at a series of concerts at many prestigious locales, including at the beatification of St Theresa at St Peter’s, made recordings and established herself as an international musicologist and literary figure.

Inevitably came Himachal’s retirement and she writes of the transition to ‘increasing anonymity and decreased relevance’.  For Reba, though, it was fulfilling. She curated an album of 50 Tagore songs, organised documentary films on Tagore and Nazrul, and was appointed first director of the Tagore ICCR centre in Kolkata for five years against the wishes of her husband and eldest son. She made an indelible success of this appointment, including celebrations of Tagore and Vivekananda’s 150th anniversaries.

This memoir flows evenly and lucidly and is the result of careful record keeping, both of data and photographs. There are passages of relevant history and tourism that could interest readers, and of celebrities whose names are familiar to all. Curiously though, there are many persons, mainly but not all, of the diplomatic service, who appear but whose names are not revealed, even when the reference is laudatory. Perhaps Reba is needlessly coy, but it remains a minor distraction.

The characterisation of foreign peoples and races are vividly sketched particularly during her early postings. She laments how politics interferes with friendships, such as in Pakistan, and agrees that conditions in our foreign service have changed for the better, though it is sad to read that in the early days, even an ice cream was considered an extravagance. She has time for commentary on racism and alcoholism, ‘deep-set prejudices among those ignorant about the world outside,’ school ragging, immigration, integration, inter-generational conflict, multiculturalism and assimilation. She writes tellingly about her early ordeals with asthma. And on the lighter side, her varied experiences as a swimmer.

Reba has a questing eye for the comic and bizarre. In an introspective mood, she ‘could not help wondering why Bengali men fixated on their dreams could remain mule-headed, choosing to remain unresponsive to any advice they did not want to hear.’ Her husband was ‘a person so intelligent and full of life…overprotective in the best of times and rather faint hearted in the worst,’ and herself ‘famous for misplacing house keys every second day, notorious for forgetting people’s names.’ Reba Som’s self-deprecatory comments should not deter readers. This is an engaging and illuminating book of ‘multi-layered history’ – a phrase she uses in a different context.

The reviewer is a former foreign secretary

Hop, Skip and Jump: Peregrinations of a Diplomat’s Wife

By Reba Som

Om Books, New Delhi, 2023

240 pages, Rs 395/-