 | « Back to article | Print this article |
"Its an attempt to look at myself in a different light, to come face to face with another me, to rediscover my other self," said the Trinamool Congress chief, who was instrumental in dethroning the Left Front after 34 years in power.
"A book full of personal anecdotes and family details, her early years as a politician are interesting because they are a candid account of how a girl from very middle-class moorings suddenly got thrown into the deep end of regional and national politics," said publisher Roli Books.
The book will have mention of her first trip abroad to Kuala Lampur where she was in for a shock when she realised there was nobody to receive her at the airport.
Mamata also shares how she made friends with a Thai girl in the Malaysian capital and bonded with her. Equally interesting are the details about her first trip to the US where she bought chapsticks as gifts for her family back home thinking she was buying lipsticks.
Apart from her struggle as a young member of the Youth Congress to a leader of the masses, the memoirs show a different side of her than the firebrand leader the country knows her to be.
"The book has details of her early years where she was always a serious student in school and the financial difficulties the family had to face after her father's untimely death, her election in the students union and then as member of the Youth Congress where she was always encouraged and given new responsibilities by Rajiv Gandhi, her expulsion from the party and formation of Trinamool Congress," the publishers said.