{"id":341205,"date":"2023-01-02T01:08:58","date_gmt":"2023-01-02T06:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=341205"},"modified":"2023-01-03T01:10:47","modified_gmt":"2023-01-03T06:40:47","slug":"so-unassuming-that-his-greatness-may-have-been-missed-by-the-undiscerning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/so-unassuming-that-his-greatness-may-have-been-missed-by-the-undiscerning\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018So unassuming, that his greatness may have been missed by the undiscerning\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u2018King of Hearts – A tribute from a daughter, to her father\u2019 is Abhilasha Kumari\u2019s tribute to her father, the late Virbhadra Singh. And as one reads through this book, what hits is that there\u2019s little mention of Singh\u2019s political graph, considering he was towering political figure of Himachal Pradesh. A book review by Humra Quraishi<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

As the very title relays this book is Abhilasha Kumari\u2019s tribute to her father, the late Virbhadra Singh. And as one reads through this book, what hits is that there\u2019s little mention of Virbhadra Singh\u2019s political graph. Not to be overlooked the fact he was the reigning political figure of Himachal Pradesh.<\/p>\n

To\u00a0 this there\u2019s Abhilasha Kumari\u2019s rather candid explanation tucked in the preface:\u201cThis\u00a0 book is\u00a0 not\u00a0 meant to be a\u00a0 record of\u00a0 my\u00a0 father\u2019s\u00a0 political\u00a0 achievements. It is neither a biography, nor a memoir or a history book. It is simply an attempt to throw light\u00a0 upon the\u00a0 man who was my\u00a0 father, through the eyes\u00a0 of the daughter. It comes straight from my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

With that take off, Abhilasha dwells on the family backgrounders.\u00a0 Building up from the early years of Virbhadra Singh till passed away in the summer of 2021.<\/p>\n

Perhaps, the forte are the whole range of photographs, focussing on Virbhadra\u00a0 Singh\u00a0 and his spouse and\u00a0 children and relatives. Of course, webbed and inter-webbed are details to what made Virbhadra Singh stand out, as a caring-loving-doting father.\u00a0 As Abhilasha describes her father, \u201cHe was a simple man, so unassuming, that his greatness of\u00a0 character may\u00a0 have\u00a0 been\u00a0 missed by the\u00a0 undiscerning. However, all those who knew him, had worked with him, or had any sort of connection with him, could never forget him\u2026He was true to his heart and spoke his mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

One instance after another, where Abhilasha details how her father would not just spend time with her and her siblings but also get them involved with work. \u201cAnother memory of those days is that of my father composing and typing his own letters, on a portable typewriter. He was extremely meticulous and very particular about neatness and spellings. The\u00a0 nuns in school were\u00a0 very\u00a0 particular about them too, which stood\u00a0 me in good stead, as my\u00a0 father sometimes\u00a0 asked\u00a0 me\u00a0 to\u00a0 take\u00a0 down dictation in long\u00a0 hand. As I grew older, this became a\u00a0 regular feature. I would prepare a rough draft and read it loud, as he typed it with two fingers. He would never sign a document containing manual corrections. The page had to be retyped until it was perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

This slim book carries various anecdotes and incidents, focusing on Virbhadra Singh\u2019s\u00a0 personality and also those subtle relays. Perhaps, the most significant one is this:\u00a0 To quote Abhilasha, \u201cOne of the earliest practical\u00a0 lessons I\u00a0 imbibed from my\u00a0 father is that, whatever is\u00a0 worth doing, is worth doing well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Title of the book \u2013 King of Hearts- A tribute from a\u00a0 daughter, to\u00a0 her\u00a0 father<\/p>\n

Author –\u00a0 Abhilasha Kumari<\/p>\n

Pages -106<\/p>\n

Price –\u00a0 Rs 495<\/p>\n

Publishers – AuthorsPress<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u2018King of Hearts – A tribute from a daughter, to her father\u2019 is Abhilasha Kumari\u2019s tribute to her father, the late Virbhadra Singh. And as one reads through this book, what hits is that there\u2019s little mention of Singh\u2019s political graph, considering he was towering political figure of Himachal Pradesh. A book review by Humra […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341206,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[650,23,2205],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341205"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":341207,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341205\/revisions\/341207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/341206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}