She may be revered, she may be detested but she cannot be ignored. Her descriptions remind me of the elephant and the blind men. Every person who has known her or read about her or heard her or experienced her regime has a view based narrowly on his or her own personal perception.There is one who said ‘India is Indira, Indira is India” , There are many who said she wielded goddess Kali’s power to destroy evil, others said she herself was evil personified. Persons who worked with her every day – called sycophants by her detractors – swore by her and those in the opposite camp swore at her. The Emergency and the reign of terror , many say, were her undoing. Constitutional processes were suspended, dissidents were jailed or humiliated. Forcible sterilisation was carried out on just about anybody regardless of age. There are others who say Emergency restored order in a country that was being torn by irrational and divisive political activity. Whatever one might say, a person whose memory  still  blooms or haunts has to be a person with a permanent slot in history. Indira Gandhi is  surely  one such.