Saturday, 11 November 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
A discussion with the veteran Congress leader and former Union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar on the first book of his three-part autobiography ‘Memoirs of a Maverick’ was held at the Doon Library and Research Centre auditorium on Friday. The senior functionaries of the library said that this was a part of the ongoing series of book launches and discussions being held there. Ranjona Banerjee moderated the discussion. The library functionaries said that this book is about the first fifty years of Aiyar’s life, from his childhood in Dehradun as a student of The Doon School, his time at Saint Stephen’s and Cambridge to his working as a close confidante of the late former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
From the discussion, it came out that the readers would have a snapshot of his childhood and college days, his parents’ difficult marriage, his youngest brother’s suicide, his college years, his near non-entry into the foreign service on account of the IB report about his communist beliefs and the countries he served in as an Indian Foreign Service officer.
Aiyar was thrice elected to the lower house of Parliament from Tamil Nadu and also served a six-year term in the upper house. In 2006, he was conferred with the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award. He served as a cabinet minister from 2004 to 2009, holding a number of portfolios. Nine of his books have been published so far and these include his latest- Memoirs of a Maverick.
