Some women also discovered to their surprise that Nehru was not to be impressed. The romantic outlook was, as he himself wrote, foreign to him -- though probably not quite as foreign as he believed.
He had been apt to see revolutionaries through romantic eyes. His detachment, which grew with the years, was the more remarkable as he was not a cold man. He could weep as well as laugh. Perhaps it began as a defence against his own sensitiveness and his own individualism.
With his detachment went an uncommon capacity for abstracting himself from his immediate environment; for instance at a banquet or a concert or a parade, and giving himself to thought. On these occasions, which people sitting next to him did not find flattering, you could almost see his mind working, and the very speed of it.
Image: With Govind Ballabh Pant, a stalwart of the freedom movement.
Buy Nehru, A Contemporary's Estimate by Walter Crocker
Also read: 'Jawaharlal, do you want Kashmir or do you want to give it away?'
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