Book Review | Letters from a Father to his Daughter

By Hasan Wadud

I recently read this book. These were the letters written by Jawaharlal Nehru to his daughter, Indira Gandhi, who was 10 years old, when he was in prison. They were written in the summer of 1928 when Nehru was 38 years old. The series contains 30 letters.

At the beginning of the book, he explains how the Earth might have come to existence. He also explains how we get proofs about the facts we have.

He then goes on by explaining about the first life forms and what they were like. He steadily progresses on to how humans came.

Humans mainly hunted and were nomads before. Then slowly the civilisation starts. People mainly settled down near the rivers and started agriculture. Then they go forward to form tribes.

He also writes about different parts of the world and the people of different epochs and the differences between them.

He writes what a patriarch was and how he became a king. He then writes about Trade and Travel which shaped the world.

Facts about numbers, languages, writings, classes of people, fossils and ruins are also mentioned.

Notably, he writes a summary about all of what he has written.

In the end, he writes two chapters about the Aryans and how they came to India. He also mentions about Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

To conclude, he tells us about pre-history or ‘the edge of history’ as he put it. Written in simple words, it is a fantastic work.

This edition I read is published by Puffin. It is hard bound book. I love its flour and design and also the quality of the paper. The pages are also margined in an impressive way.

The font is simple. Its foreword is is written by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Indira Gandhi’s granddaughter.

There is another book, called the ‘Glimpses of the World’ in our library. I was bit confused because both were books written to Indira Gandhi by Jawaharlal Nehru. I found out that ‘Glimpses...’ is about world history containing a compilation 196 letters. Whereas this book was about larger human history and contains only 30 letters.

©Hasan Wadud