Everyone knows that Indira's first son, Rajiv Gandhi, was a reluctant progeny of politics. He would rather soar into the skies without a worry, love at first sight, record the world from behind his lens, get carried away by the romance of poetry, immerse in haunting melodies, laugh without a worry, live without a strain and be a you-and-me man despite his pedigree. Life Positive flashed through his electric smile, a smile that was to later become the hallmark of India's youngest and most ardent Prime Minister.

Yes, you can call it fate for lack of any other expletive that Rajiv Gandhi's greatest hours were born out of his lowest moments.

For his mother's sake, he stepped into a profession he was at odds with. His brother and the family's groomed inheritor of political legacy, Sanjay Gandhi, died unexpectedly in a plane crash and Rajiv was left holding his broken mother's hand as strongly as he held back his own trauma. From a carefree and loving husband and a fulltime father, the pilot touched down to ground realities. He soon molded himself into being Indira's understudy, a Member of Parliament and a young learner of politics. With a two-year stint of

hard work and a defining communion with the grassroots of the world's biggest democracy, Rajiv made it his business to see, know and understand his nation and its needs first hand.

But just when he was shedding his callow political skin, in came another shock. Again, to carry forward his mother's dreams, this time bloodied by her violent death at the hands of her own security guards, he wore the crown knowing full well that it had in it the spikes of poverty, illiteracy, global armament, underdevelopment, a past-life hang-up and a set of issues that over three decades of Independence had failed to address. It was here that a carefree Rajiv's persona underwent the biggest change.