JAIPUR l THURSDAY, MAY 21, 2020 l Pages 12 l 3.00
In the
RNI NO. RAJENG/2019/77764 l Vol 1 l Issue No. 344
of...
memory
—Rajiv Gandhi
SANJEEV SRIVASTAVA
H
e was the first dapper, youthful, suave, urbane, aspirational and modern face of India. Behind his smashing shades lurked a dream. To make India Great. And beneath his dashing Bandgalla, beat a heart which cared for India’s poor and the rural lot. Through Panchayati Raj, Rajiv Gandhi ushered in a new era of empowering the country’s hitherto faceless and marginalised villagers. It was his vision, dream and desire to lead India into the 21st century which saw us taking giant strides in the sphere of telecom and computers. It was a cruel irony of fate which took him away from us just as he was beginning to lose his sometimes naive political innocence and coming to grips with the vicious and often below the belt cut and thrusts of our body politic. If only he had lived on. If only we had not lost him in his prime. Who knows, we may well have been a different country today!