One by one they are all departing. Men and women my mother’s generation described as Izzatdaar Log. The Respectable Ones. People who lived their lives with dignity and grace. Atal ji was one such rarity in an increasingly treacherous, sycophantic, cacophonous and deceitful world of Indian politics.

In 1996, just before handing his resignation as PM to the President, he quoted Valmiki’s Ram in Parliament and declared, “I am not afraid of Death, only of a blot against my name…when I became a Prime Minister my heart didn’t jump up with joy. And now when I leave all this behind and tender my resignation, my heart is free of any sense of guilt.”

Atal ji lived life on his own terms, as he wished, guilt free, generous and warm to all who treasured their own privacy and others’. I knew him first as an admirer of my mother’s writings. He also remained a life-long friend of hers. As an editor I basked in the warmth of his generous affection, which forgave my ideological opposition to what the Right in India stood for. He sent me his poems from wherever he was, from New York, Delhi or Simla, and always with a little humorous note in his own hand.

Meeting Atal ji was like suddenly coming across a rare orchid in a dark forest, full of poisonous vines and thorny shrubs. Both as a tall leader of the Opposition and also as Prime Minister, he managed to achieve a rare harmony not only with the majority community of Hindus but also with the minority groups from Kashmir to the North East, because his style always remained non-confrontational and reasonable.