Martyrdom does not end something, it only a beginning.

When I'm not governing my country any more, I'll go back to taking care of children. Or else I'll start studying anthropology - it's a science that's always interested me very much, also in relation to the problem of poverty. Or else I'll go back to studying history - at Oxford I took my degree in history. Or else...I don't know, I'm fascinated by the tribal communities. I might busy myself with them.

That's always been my philosophy. - I've never thought of the consequences of a necessary action.

My fiancé, you see, belonged to another religion. He was a Parsi. And this was something nobody could stand - all of India was against us. They wrote to Gandhi, to my fther, to me. Insults, death threats. Every day the postman arrived with an enormous sack and dumped the letters on the floor. We even stopped reading them; we let a couple of friends read them and tell us what was in them.

The immediate is often the enemy of the ultimate.

I think I'm cold, indeed icy, hard. Then there's another reason, one that goes with my frankness: I don't put on act.

I always wanted to have children - if it had been up to me, I would have had eleven. It was my husband who wanted only two.