The production of a Hollywood film on the romance between Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, and Lady Edwina Mountbatten, wife of the last British viceroy of India, has been temporarily halted. The Indian government wants an assurance that the movie, Indian Summer, starring Cate Blanchett and Hugh Grant, would not contain physically intimate scenes.
(Nehru’s name was also romantically linked with famous artist Amrita Sher-Gil and Padmaja Naidu, Sarojini Naidu’s daughter).
Film director Joe Wright, whose credits include Atonement and Pride and Prejudice, told Variety magazine: “We were in between a rock and a hard place. The Indian government wanted us to make less of the love story while the studio (Universal Pictures) wanted us to make more of the love story,” reports The Telegraph.
“The film is based on Alex Von Tunzelmann’s book Indian Summer, The Secret History of the End of Empire. The nature of Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten’s relationship is still hotly contested in India, where many prefer to believe the ‘lonely widower’ and the adventurous Vicereine were devoted but platonic.
“Now, Universal Pictures has postponed plans for filming because of the scale of the budget, thought to have been between $30 million (£18 million) and $40 million (£24 million).
“Director Joe Wright is said to have considered making the film for less than $30 million (£18 million) before deciding to wait for more favourable financial conditions.” More here…
What are the objections raised by the Indian government? Please click here…
Here is an interesting video clip in The Times of India…See here…
Did the Nehru-Edwina love story change the course of India’s history? See here…
The Independent reports: “The deep and passionate relationship between India’s first prime minister and the wife of the country’s last viceroy is one of the worst-kept secrets of the Raj.
“Enduring and complex, the bond between Jawaharlal Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten lasted until the end of their lives. When she died in 1960, letters from Nehru were scattered across her bed, and when she was buried at sea in the English Channel, he (Nehru) dispatched a frigate all the way from India to drop a wreath of marigolds into the waves.”
Edwina’s daughter, Pamela Mountbatten, who fondly called Nehru ‘Mamu’ (maternal uncle), has used diary entries and extracts from family albums as documentary evidence to write India Remembered: A Personal Account of the Mountbattens During the Transfer of Power. In a section titled “A Special Relationship” Pamela writes: “My mother had already had lovers. My father was inured to it. It broke his heart the first time, but it was somehow different with Nehru.”
She quotes a letter which Lord Mountbatten wrote to her elder sister in June 1948 on the Edwina-Nehru relationship: “‘She and Jawaharlal (sic) are so sweet together, they really dote on each other in the nicest way and Pammy and I are doing everything we can to be tactful and help. Mummy has been incredibly sweet lately and we’ve been such a happy family’.” More here…
Photos show Nehru and Edwina…
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.