Of the many examples of his capacity for work which could be cited here are two.
A governor of the Reserve Bank, who was once Nehru's principal private secretary, recounted one of his experiences.
In August 1947, during the Partition troubles, Nehru and his party set out at six one morning. They flew for an hour and then traveled by car and jeep though the scenes of the massacres in the Punjab, where, in addition to the physical strain was the nervous strain of experiencing 'his hopes, his dreams, his faith in human nature... crashing down'.
It was nine at night when they got back to base. Then, after a meal, Nehru held discussions with the Pakistani prime minister until midnight. He then worked on papers, writing or dictating minutes and instructions, until two. He was up again at 5:30.
'Something like it,' his principal private secretary wrote, 'some sixteen to seventeen hours out of twenty four, has been the practice with him day after day, week after week, month after month, all these thirteen years. The members of his staff, who are all much younger than himself, have never been able to keep pace with him... this extraordinary vitality.'
Image: With Mahatma Gandhi's associate Mirabehn at the Nizamuddin railway station in New Delhi.
Buy Nehru, A Contemporary's Estimate by Walter Crocker
Also read: Truly, an extraordinary fellow
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