In Outlook, Sheela Reddy profiles Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s daughter Upinder Singh:
“You can’t miss it,” says historian Upinder Singh rather apologetically, giving directions to her home in the St Stephen’s staff quarters. “It looks like a fortress.” It does: a towering blank metal gate, of which a chocolate square pops open at the first knock to reveal the head of a grim securityman. And there’s a whole posse of Black Cats behind the gate, befitting the home of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s daughter. But inside, it’s a different world: cane chairs, cement floors and peeling white walls. The shabby-genteel world of two university dons who, between them, share most of the housework-there’s a part-time cook, Neena, to whom Upinder wants to dedicate her next book and “the boys help a little but not as much as I’d like them to”.
And between them, they have also probably read all the books lining their walls, where plaster casts of Socrates rub shoulders with Harappan dancing girls. In fact, half-a-dozen of these books have been written by Upinder herself.
[Photo: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's daughter Upinder in her modest home in the St. Stephen's staff quarters, Delhi. / Outlook]
