Manisha bids tearful farewell to grandmother

Jul 14, 2007 Sudeshna Sarkar

Kathmandu, July 14 (IANS) As Nepal bid farewell to one of its few remaining links with history Friday night, it was an especially emotional moment for Bollywood actress Manisha Koirala, who lost her grandmother from whom she is thought to have inherited her theatrical talent.

Sushila Koirala, who could have been one of the most powerful women in Nepal but chose to devote her life to quietly supporting her husband Bishweshwor Prasad Koirala, Nepal's first elected prime minister, died Friday.

The 84-year-old, whose husband was one of the most charismatic leaders of Nepal, married into a family that gave Nepal four premiers.

She was the grandmother of Manisha Koirala and probably gave the actress the genes that made Manisha choose a career in show business while the rest of the family, known as the Kennedys of Nepal, are involved in politics.

Manisha also bears a strong resemblance to the petite Sushila, as she looked in her younger days. However, though the stricken diva flew to Kathmandu from Mumbai Friday to say a last farewell to her grandmother, she could not take part in the funeral procession due to the flight being delayed.

Sushila Koirala's own life resembled a Bollywood plot.

She was married to B. P. Koirala at the age of 13, when, according to reports, she was illiterate, came from a poor family and had no beauty.

Her parents-in-law are said to have rued the match but her husband turned her into a swan with diligent grooming.

He would read out to her to educate her and made her take "oil massages to improve her skin tone so that she became one of the most beautiful women", as he told his friends during his imprisonment.

The Koiralas had gone into exile in Benaras city in India due to the autocratic Rana regime in Nepal and it became Sushila's duty to care, amid poverty, for an extended family of dozens that included workers of the Nepali Congress party and other supporters of the first pro-democracy movement in Nepal.

After the Koiralas returned to Nepal, the Nepali Congress won the election and B. P. Koirala became the first elected prime minister, only to have the then king Mahendra seize power through a coup and jail him.

All through the changes in the family fortune, Sushila chose to remain in the background, never trying to sway her husband but supporting him unquestioningly. Unlike her younger sister-in-law Nona Koirala, who also died earlier this year, and who had exerted a strong influence on Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, Sushila chose to stay aloof from politics.

She didn't like the thought of her sons joining politics. When the eldest, Prakash Koirala, decided to support King Gyanendra and became a minister in the unpopular royal government, she did not like the idea but did not pressurise him.

In a rare interview given two years before her death, she had said that though the Nepali Congress was traditionally a pro-monarchy party, yet King Gyanendra's moves since 2005 to curb civil rights showed that the monarch could not be trusted.

Trained in Bharatnatyam and Kathak, Sushila had dreamt of a performing arts university in Nepal and had also run two dance academies.

Sushila Koirala is survived by three sons, none of whom inherited B. P. Koirala's charisma though two of them are very successful in their chosen professions.