Prison & Chocolate Cake

by Nayantara Sahgal

A dramatic portrait of the spirit of sacrifice that carried India through the years of the struggle for independence, this evocative memoir of an unusual childhood ends with the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948.

Nayantara Sahgal describes what it was like growing up in Anand Bhavan, Allahabad, the home of her parents shared with her maternal uncle, Jawarlal Nehru, during the years when Gandhi was leading the movement for independence. It describes in loving detail the lives of a family for whom the country's fight for freedom was more important than anything else, certainly coming before comfort and riches.

The book is particularly delightful for its picture of Nehru who springs from these pages as a man of friendly humanity and a joy in life that made him a beloved uncle, yet with an inborn greatness that inspired awe and admiration in the little girl who played with him.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, India, Indian Literature

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

Nayantara Sahgal is an Indian writer in English. Her fiction deals with India's elite responding to the crises engendered by political change. She was one of the first female Indian writers in English to receive wide recognition. She is a member of the Nehru family (not the Nehru-Gandhi family as she so often points out), the second of the three daughters born to Jawaharlal Nehru's sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit.
She was awarded the 1986 Sahitya Akademi Award for English, for her novel Rich Like Us (1985)awarded by India's National Academy of Letters.

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some books cannot possibly be explained in a Goodreads review without it feeling a lot like a waste of time. I recommend this unreservedly if you know or have any interest whatever in the context, whichever side your great-grandparents were on. A plus if you admire excellence in English prose or your father died in Lucknow Prison and you ended up at Wellesley anyhow.

[Abby]

I don’t read celebrity memoirs…unless they are 70 years old, apparently. All I did was laugh at this priceless title on my great aunt’s bookshelf, and she said yeah, it was a pretty good read, and spontaneously gave it to me. Nayantara Sahgal offers an interesting window into the lives of wealthy liberals of 1940s India. They have a funny mix of money, influence, education, liberal ideals, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism. They get married in course, homespun cloth, as Ghandi instructed, but still have plenty of valuables to be hidden from raids by British authorities. They romanticize the folk traditions of their country, for which they would sacrifice everything, but spend much of their lives abroad. I know many people like them (including my great aunt), but modern wealthy U.S. liberals as a group don’t seem to have this absolute willingness to spend years in prison for their ideals. In 1940s India, they did.

I read quite a few books from this time period this year, and it is interesting to imagine “Nehru’s nieces” coming into New York not far from where Ralph Ellison was writing over in Harlem, with Rachel Carson fastidiously doing her research a little ways up the coast and Carson McCullers playing piano and soaking up small-town Georgia. Each of these writers has such a wildly different take on the world that it’s weird to think of them as contemporaries. So much was happening, so many worlds within the world. It’s worth remembering that simpler times were not actually simpler times.

[Poonam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got myself a signed copy.

Book is memoir of Nayantara's life when growing up with her sisters, tales of studying in USA, meeting Pearl S Buck, Paul Robenson and other experiences during war and the independence struggle. She talks about her parents and her love for her Mamu, Jawaharlal Nehru. Book ends on a tragic note with the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

P.S: There are some glaring editing errors. Most memorable one being that some songs from Harrow that Nehru loved to sing have been called 'fag songs'.

[Becky Marietta · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last days of the fight for India's independence as relayed by one of Nehru's beloved nieces. This book is a hodgepodge of social and political commentary, hero worship of Nehru and Gandhi (by someone who was known by both of them on a personal level), and a charming memoir of a girl whose parents lived to serve the fight. It was history the way I like to read history--from the perspective of someone who was there. Sahgal has a great sense humor, a gentle, forgiving kindness, and a sharp eye for detail that makes her story come alive.

[Vedatrayee Chakraborty · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book and our childhood. I still read it again and again. One of my favourite parts is when Nayantata ji's loving Indi and Feroze tie the knot and a sombre Vijayalakshmi Pandit looks on, with brimming tears that fill her eyes. That was beautiful!

[Valerie]

The title comes from the author's grandmother, whose name I never can recall, so I always look it up (Swaroop Rani). When Motilal Nehru, the author's grandfather, was sent to prison, their grandmother explained that grandfather had been sent to prison, so they must celebrate; "So we shall have chocolate cake for tea."

The author is a member of a very prominent family in India; the daughter of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, and thus, though she and one of her sisters were sent out of India for a large part of the Swaraj movement because they were still children, she was in a position to pick up a lot of inside stuff that most people didn't get access to.

One of the things that impressed me most was that, when asked if they didn't want to emigrate to the US, the author and her sister replied "No, thank you." They wanted to live in their own homeland: just without the British Raj, thanks all the same.

[Valerie]

Technically, it's Prison 'And' Chocolate Cake.

The author of this book is the daughter of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit. Who was Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit? You remember in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, when Superman walks into the General Assembly of the UN, bows to a small woman in a sari, and asks for permission to speak? That woman was modeled on Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit.

Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit was the sister of Jawaharlal Nehru. While she was never Secretary-General of the UN, she was the first (of only three, so far) female President of the General Assembly. She was also ambassador to many nations, including the US and the USSR.

The title is from the Swaraj ('self-rule' movement in India. The author's grandfather, Motilal Nehru, was sent to prison, and her grandmother said they had to celebrate: 'We shall have chocolate cake for tea.'

[Roger · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Prison and Chocolate Cake" by Nayantara Sahgal, which was originally published in the year 1954 throws light onto the life and times of a family who was in the midst of the freedom struggle of pre-independent India. Popularly acknowledged as the country's first family, Nayantara Sahgal was born into the Nehru family. The book gives in a rather creamy layer perspective of the life and times of the Nehrus, and the country at large. The writing style is rather lucid and easy to go by. However I found that it rather lacked a sense of substance as it didn't completely take me by storm, as in contrast to the period of time in Indian history during which the book is based upon.

But however I wouldn't rate it as "disappointing". Overall it's a 2/5 for Nayantara Sahgal's "Prison and Chocolate Cake".

[Divyansh Gupta · Rating 3 out of 5]

its a good book for a person who doesnt know too much about India.... being an Indian, and having a decent enough idea of the history of the Indian independence struggle.. the book leaves u disappointed

[Moushumi Ghosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

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[Nehal]

Absolute gem!

[Neer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A young girl's memoir as India approaches independence.

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