While politically he may have been isolated, it is pertinent to remember that he was the first person in the Congress not from the Nehru-Gandhi family to complete a full term in office (later Manmohan Singh completed two terms). A polyglot takes overĪ polyglot well-versed in many Indian and foreign languages, Rao, from Telangana, soon rose in the Congress party and became one of its top leaders. That was, perhaps, the only time Rao ever smiled on camera, but the man remained evasive as always. “Am I speaking to the next Prime Minister,” NDTV founder Prannoy Roy had famously asked Rao on the eve of the Congress winning the hustings. He retired as Foreign Minister of India, and the Indian National Congress had put him out to pasture till Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination put him in the spotlight.

Rao was one of the few Prime Ministers who was also a former Chief Minister - of Andhra Pradesh, his home State. It symbolised his loneliness even in death. Someone had forgotten to feed the firewood to cremate the body fully. Photographs of Rao’s mortal remains left alone in a Hyderabad crematorium after a state funeral were splashed in the media. The book begins by recalling the somber images of the half-burnt body of the former Prime Minister. To include the local industry, he worked hard and Confederation of Engineering Industry changed its name to Confederation of Indian Industry in 1992 in line with the reforms in progress. Rao also encouraged NRIs to come back and invest. He also knew that such exposure would be an advocacy for his reforms. He visited Davos twice and was the first Indian head of state to do so. The dhoti-wearing Prime Minister would lead from the front when it came to drawing foreign investment. He was one of the first to use computers back then and dabbled in a bit of coding himself. Rao liked software companies and linked them to his reforms. Though software companies employed just a fraction of the working population, they came to symbolise a new India where honesty and hard work could make millionaires out of the middle class.

Vinay sitapati half lion