Too many women
In too many countries
Speak the same language.
Of silence?
Anasuya Sengupta
Living History: Hillary Rodham Clinton
This book aroused my interest because I expected from it an insight into the life and psyche of Hillary Rodham Clinton?the unusual first lady and betrayed wife who stood by her husband commanding dignity and respect.
The first chapter of this hefty book explains the role played by Hillary?s parents, grand parents and uncles in the early years of her life. Then begins the story of her own life?a great part of which is her political life?till she leaves the white house at the end of her husband?s tenure as President of America.
Hillary?s father served as a soldier in World War II and after the war, he returned to his family to live a decent civil life. He was a middle-class American in the middle of twentieth century when post war economy was prospering with amenities coming along its way?new house, good schools, neighbourhood parks and safe communities.
?My parents were typical of a generation who believed in the endless possibilities of America and whose values were rooted in the experience of living through the Great Depression. They believed in hard work, not entitlement; self-reliance, not self-indulgence. That is the world and family I was born into on October 26, 1947.?
I found her mother Dorothy?s early life a relevant and touching part of this memoir. Dorothy?s father was a fire fighter in Chicago and mother one of nine children from a family of French-Canadians. She used to be abandoned by her mother at the age of three or four with meal tickets to use at a restaurant near their five-story walk-up apartment. Her father was equally neglectful; his occasional gift of a doll scarcely compensated the child?s longing for affection and home-life.
When her parents finally got divorced, Dorothy and her younger sister were put into a train and sent off to her paternal grandparents in Alhambara in the east of Los Angles. ?On the four day journey, eight-year-old Dorothy was in charge of her three-year-old sister.? Dorothy and her sister were severely treated by their grand mother Emma.
At the age of fourteen, Dorothy could bear it no more and found work as a mother?s helper caring for two young children with lodging, boarding and three dollars a week. ?For the first time she lived in a household where the father and mother gave their children the love, attention and guidance she had never received.? That she made good of the love she discovered in that house is well proved through the way she brought up her children.
Dorothy later returned to her mother in Chicago but soon realized that Della wanted her only as a house keeper! She left her mother but stayed on in Chicago working for an office job. She met Hugh E. Rodham, a travelling salesman and they married in 1942. I particularly like this first chapter titled ?An American Story? because it gives a glimpse into the background and making of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
?University of Life? matches with the aspiration, anxiety and excitement of a girl from any middle class family of India! She meets her first mentor Don?Rev. Jones--who called his Sunday and Thursday night Methodist Youth Fellowship sessions ?the university of life?. It is evident that Hillary was initiated into her unrelenting passion for justice and social reform from him. She also recounts the overwhelming experience of hearing Dr. Martin Luther King speak at Orchestra Hall. ?Class of 69? narrates the challenges that gradually mould Hillary into an individual with a definite ideology.
It is amusing to note that Hillary faced hurdles almost similar to those even we encounter in India while opting for a college away from hometown! The society in her times was more conservative (just like ours) than what America is today and parents, it seems, are the same protective lot all over the world! She finally gets admitted to Wellesley, one of the finest American colleges even today. There is an interesting observation on African-American sentiments. Not having any black friend before, Hillary was deeply self conscious when she moved around with her friend Karen Williams. She felt hyperaware realizing that she was moving away from her past and developing opinions of her own.
As she came to know her classmates better, she learned that it was the same with her black counterparts. Just as Hillary had come from a predominantly white environment, they had come from a predominantly black one. Janet, one of her friends said that she had complained home that ?I hate it here, everyone?s white!? Her father had agreed to let her leave but her mother insisted on her staying on. It was similar to the conversation Hillary had with her parents on joining Wellesly. Her father was anxious and wanted her back but her mother told her to hang on till the end. Surprisingly, this is also the case in many Indian homes!
There is a whole chapter titled ?Bill Clinton?. Naturally. From the meeting with him till their marriage through a series of denials by Hillary and passionate persistence from Bill---the love affair between the two is sensitively portrayed. ? One of the first things I noticed about Bill was the shape of his hands. His wrists are narrow and elegant and his long fingers deft, like those of a pianist or a surgeon?..Now his hands are showing signs of age, twisted by thousands of handshakes and golf swings and miles of signature.?
They shared the same ideology, held the same political views and discussed and worked for the same cause. She gives detailed account of Bill?s campaign for first his run for congress, then as Attorney General of Arkansas, then re-election and finally for Presidency in 1988. She writes about her active participation in The Rose Law Firm. We learn about her passionate views on Health Care and her persistent endeavours to provide Americans with basic health care facilities. In ?East wing, West wing? we get a taste of her wry humour on her entrance in White House and life thereafter.
The chapter dedicated to the Deputy White House counsel Vince Foster, who committed suicide after the news of Whitewater or irregularities in White House Travel office was published, reveals the deep concern and gratitude she had for her staff. There are detailed accounts of her visits to different countries including India. She magnanimously acknowledges the young college girl Anasuya Sengupta of Delhi whose poem she used in her speech at Rajiv Gandhi Foundation making her instantly famous worldwide.
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